r 




"GIVE ME THE CHANGE, PLEASE." 



THE 



; 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 



AND 



OTHER NEW STORIES 



BY 

MARK TWAIN 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY 
1893 







Copyright, 1893, 
S. L. CLEMENS. 

(All rights reserved.) 



CONTENTS 



THE ^1,000,000 BANK-NOTE, - - 9 

MENTAL TELEGRAPHY, 45 

A CURE FOR THE BLUES, - 77 

THE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT, 106 

T ALL KINDS OF SHIPS, - - 154 

PLAYING COURIER, - 184 

THE GERMAN CHICAGO, - - 210 

A PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND, 233 

A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL, - 241 



167613 




UNIVERSITY \ 

KaX 



THE / l.OOO.OOO BANK-NOTE. 

\ 1[ 7 HEN I was twenty-seven years old, I was a 
* mining-broker s clerk in San Francisco, and 
an expert in all the details of stock traffic. I was 
alone in the world, and had nothing to depend upon 
but my wits and a clean reputation ;\ but these were 
setting my feet in the road to eventual fortune, and 
I was content with the prospect. 

My time was my own after the afternoon board, 
Saturdays, and I was accustomed to put it in on a 
little sail-boat on the bay. One day I ventured too 
far, and was carried out to sea. Just at nightfall, 
when hope was about gone, I was picked up by a 
small brig which was bound for London. It was a 
long and stormy voyage, and they made me work 
my passage without pay, as a common sailor. 
When I stepped ashore in London my clothes were 
ragged and shabby, and I had only a dollar in my 
pocket. This money fed and sheltered me twenty- 
four hours. During the next twenty-four I went 
without food and shelter. 

9 



IO.\ : : : ^H^ ^000 fOO^. BANK-NOTE. 

; About ten o clock on^he following morning, seedy 
and hungry, I was dragging myself along Portland 
Place, when a child that was passing, towed by a 
nursemaid, tossed a luscious big pear minus one 
bite into the gutter. I stopped, of course, and 
fastened my desiring eye on that muddy treasure. 
My mouth watered for it, my stomach craved it, my 
whole being begged for it. But every time I made 
a move to get it some passing eye detected my 
purpose, and of course I straightened up, then, and 
looked indifferent, and pretended that I had n t 
been thinking about the pear at all. This same 
thing kept happening and happening, and I could 
n t get the pear. I was just getting desperate enough 
to brave all the shame, and to seize it, when a win 
dow behind me was raised, and a gentleman spoke 
out of it, saying: / 

" Step in here, please." 

I was admitted by a gorgeous flunkey, and shown 
into a sumptuous room where a couple of elderly 
gentlemen were sitting. They sent away the ser 
vant, and made me sit down. They had just finished 
their breakfast, and the sight of the remains of it 
almost overpowered me. I could hardly keep my 
wits together in the presence of that food, but as I 
was not asked to sample it, I had to bear my trouble 
as best I could.}. 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. II 

Now, something had been happening there a little 
before, which I did not know anything about until 
a good many days afterward, but I will tell you 
about it now.JlThose two old brothers had been 
having a pretty hot argument a couple of days be 
fore, a.nd had ended by agreeing to decide it by a 

V V-yf V) /jtv &gt;{ nxuAX/ n tA/M 

hich is the English way of settling every 
thing. 

You will remember that the Bank of England 
once issued two notes of a million pounds each, to 
be used for a special purpose connected with some 
public transaction with a foreign country. For 
some reason or other only one of these had been 
used and canceled; the other still lay in the vaults 
of the Bank. Well, the brothers, chatting along, 
happened to get to wondering what might be the 
fate of a perfectly honest and intelligent stranger 
who should be turned adrift in London without a 
friend, and with no money but that million-pound 
bank-note, and no way to account for his being in 
possession of it. Brother A said he would starve to 
death; Brother B said he would n t. Brother A 
said he could n t offer it at a bank or anywhere else, 
because he would be arrested on the spot. So they 
went on disputing till Brother B said he would bet 
twenty thousand pounds that the man would live 
thirty days, any way, on that million, and keep out 



12 THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

of jail, too. Brother A took him up. Brother B 
went down to the Bank and bought that notejj Just 
like an Englishman, you see; pluck to the back 
bone, frhen he dictated a letter, ^which one of his 
clerks wrote out in a beautiful round hand, pnd then 
the two brothers sat at the window a whole day 
watching for the right man to give it to. 

(They saw many honest faces go by that were not 
intelligent enough; many that were intelligent, but 
not honest enough; many that were both, but the 
possessors were not poor enough, or, if poor enough, 
were not strangers. There was always a defect, 
until I came along; buy theyiagreed that I filled the 
bill all around ;\ so they elected me unanimously, 
and (there I was, now-, waiting to know why I was 
called in. They began to ask me questions about 
myself, and pretty soon they had my story. Finally 
they told me I would answer their purpose. I said 
I was sincerely glad, and asked what it was. Then 
, one of them handed me an envelope, and said I would 
find the explanation inside. I was going to open 
it, but he said no; take it to my lodgings, and look 
it over carefully, and not be hasty or rash. I was 
puzzled, and wanted to discuss the matter a little 
further, but they did n t; ; so I took my leave, feeling 
hurt and insulted to be made the butt of what was 
apparently some kind of a practical joke, I and yet 

A 



THE I,000,OOO BANK-NOTE. 13 

obliged to put up with it, not being in circumstances 
to resent affronts from rich and strong folk. 

I would have picked up the pear, now, and eaten 
it before all the world, but it was gone; so I had 
lost that by this unlucky business, and the thought 
of it did not soften my feeling toward those men/ 
As soon as I was out of sight of that house I opened 
my envelope, and saw that it contained money ! % ; My 
opinion of those people changed, I can tell you! (l 
lost not a momentj but shoved note and money into 
my vest-pocket, jand broke for the nearest cheap 
eating-house. "-WeH, how I did eat! When at last 
I could n t hold any more, I took out my money 
and unfolded it, took one glimpse and nearly fainted. 
Five millions of dollars! | Why, it made my head 
swim. 

I must have sat there stunned and blinking at the 
note as much as a minute before I came rightly to 
myself again. The first thing I noticed, then, was 
the landlord. His eye was on the note,(and he was 
petrified.) He was worshiping, with all his body 
and soul, but he looked as if he could n t stir hand 
or foot. I took my cue in a moment, and did the 
only rational thing there was to do. I reached the 
note toward him, and said carelessly: 

" Give me the change, please." 

Then he was restored to his normal condition, 



14 THE /,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 

and made a thousand apologies for not being able 
to break the bill, and I could n t get him to touch 
it) He wanted to look at it, and keep on looking 
at it; he could n t seem to get enough of it to quench 
the thirst of his eye, but he shrank from touching it 
as if it had been something too sacred for poor com 
mon clay to handle. I said: 

&lt;" I am sorry if it is an inconvenience, but I must 
insist. Please change it; I have n t anything else." 
But he said that was n t any matter; he was quite 
willing to let the trifle stand over till another time. 
(l said I might not be in his neighborhood again for 
a good while; but he said it was of no consequence, 
he could wait, and, moreover, I could have anything 
I wanted, any time I chose, and let the account run 
as long as I pleased. ) He said he hoped he was n t 
afraid to trust as rich a gentleman as I was, merely 
because I was of a merry disposition, and chose to 
play larks on the public in the matter of dress. ; - By 
this time another customer was entering, and the 
landlord hinted to me to put the monster out of 
sight; then he bowed me all the way to the door, 
and 1 started straight for that house and those 
Brothers, to correct the mistake which had been 
made before the police should hunt me up, and help 
me do it. I was pretty nervous, in fact pretty badly 
frightened, though, of course, I was no way in fault; 



THE 7,000,OOO BANK-NOTE. 15 

but I knew men well enough to know that when 
they find they Ve given a tramp a million-pound 
bill when they thought it was a one-pounder, they 
are in a frantic rage against him instead of quarrel 
ing with their own near-sightedness, as they ought. 
As I approached the house my excitement began 
to abate, for all was quiet there, which made me 
feel pretty sure the blunder was not discovered yet. 
I rang. The..._same servant appeared. I asked for 
those gentlemen. 

" They are gone." This in the lofty, cold way of 
that fellow s tribe. 

" Gone ? Gone where ?" 

" On a journey." 

"But whereabouts ?" 

"To the Continent, I think." 

"The Continent?" 

"Yes, sir." 

" Which way by what route ? " 

" I can t say, sir." 

" When will they be back ? " 

" In a month, they said." 

"A month! Oh, this is awful! Give me some 
sort of idea of how to get a word to them. It s of 
the last importance." 

" I can t, indeed. I Ve no idea where they Ve 
gone, sir." 



1 6 THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

&gt;( Then I must see some member of the family." 

"Family s away too; been abroad months in 
Egypt and India, I think." 

" Man, there s been an immense mistake made. 
They 11 be back before night. Will you tell them 
I Ve been here, and that I will keep coming till it s 
all made right, and they need n t be afraid ? " 

" I 11 tell them, if they come back, but I am not 
expecting them. They said you would be here in 
an hour to make inquiries, but I must tell you it s 
all right, they 11 be here on time and expect you." 

So I had to give it up and go a way. ^ What a rid 
dle it all was ! I was like to lose my mind. They 
would be here " on time." (What could that mean ? 
Oh, the letter would explain, maybe. I had forgot 
ten the letter; I got it out and read it. This is what 
it said: 

You are an intelligent and honest man, as one may see by 
your face. We conceive you to be poor and a stranger. In 
closed you will find a sum of money. It is lent to you for 
thirty days, without interest. Report at this house at the 
end of that time. I have a bet on you. If I win it you shall 
have any situation that is in my gift any, that is, that you 
shall be able to prove yourself familiar with and competent 
to fill. 

No signature, no address, no date. 
Well, here was a coil to be in ! You are posted 
on what had preceded all this, but I was not. It 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. IJ 

was just a deep, dark puzzle to me. I had n t the 
least idea what the game was, nor whether harm 
was meant me or a kindness. I went into a park, 
and sat down to try to think it out, and to consider 
what I had best do. 

At the end of an hour, my reasonings had crystal 
lized into this verdict. 

Maybe those men mean me well, maybe they 
mean me ill; no way to decide that let it go. 
They ve got a game, or a scheme, or an experi 
ment, of some kind on hand; no way to determine 
what it is let it go. There s a bet on me;Lno way 
to find out what it is let it go. That disposes of 
the indeterminable quantities; the remainder of the 
matter is tangible, solid, and may be classed and 
labeled with certainty. If I ask the Bank of Eng 
land to place this bill to the credit of the man it be 
longs to, they 11 do it, for they know him, although 
I don t; but they will ask me how I came in posses 
sion of it, and if I tell the truth, they 11 put me in 
the asylum, naturally, and a lie will land me in jail. 
The same result would follow if I tried to bank the 
bill anywhere or to borrow money on it.) I have 
got to carry this immense burden aroundimtil those 

r* 

men come back, whether I want to or not. It is 
useless to me, as useless as a handful of ashes, and 
yet I must : take care of it, and watch over it)( while 



1 8 THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

I beg my living. I could rCtgive it away, if I should 
try, for neither honest citizen nor highwayman would 
accept it or meddle with it for anything. Those 
brothers are safe. Even if I lose their bill, or burn 
it, they are still safe, because they can stop payment, 
and the Bank will make them whole ;\ but meantime, 
I Ve got to do a month s suffering without wages or 
profit unless I help win that bet, whatever it may 
be, and get that situation that I am promised. I 
shotdd like to get that; men of their sort have sit 
uations in their gift that are worth having. 

I got to thinking a good deal about that situation. 
My hopes began to rise high. (Without doubt the 
salary would be large. It would begin in a month; 
after that I should be all right. Pretty soon I was 
feeling first rate. By this time I was tramping the 
streets again. The sight of a tailor-shop gave me 
a sharp longing to. shed my rags, and to clothe my 
self decently once more. Could I afford it ? No; I 
had nothing in the world but a million pounds. So 
I forced myself to go on by. But soon I was drift 
ing back again. The temptation persecuted me 
cruelly. I must have passed that shop back and 
forth six times during that manful struggle. At last 
I gave in; I had to. I asked if they had a misfit 
suit that had been thrown on their hands. The fel 
low I spoke to nodded his head toward another fel- 



THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. \(j 

low, and gave me no answer. I went to the indicat 
ed fellow, and he indicated another fellow with his 
head, and no words. I went to him, and he said: 

" Tend to you presently." 

I waited till he was done with what he was at, 
then he took me into a back room, and overhauled 
a pile of rejected suits, and selected the rattiest one 
for me. I put it on. It did n t fit, and was n t in 
any way attractive, but it was new, and I was anx 
ious to have it; so I did n t find any fault, but said 
with some diffidence: 

"It would be an accommodation to me if you 
could wait some days for the money. I have n t 
any small change about me." 

The fellow worked up a most sarcastic expression 
of countenance, and said: 

" Oh, you have n t ? Well, of course, I did n t 
expect it. I d only expect gentlemen like you to 
carry large change." 

I was nettled, and said: 

" My friend, you should n t judge a stranger al 
ways by the clothes he wears. I am quite able to 
pay for this suit; I simply did n t wish to put you to 
the trouble of changing a large note." 

He modified his style a little at that, and said, 
though still with something of an air: 

" I did n t mean any particular harm,\but as long 



2O THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

as rebukes are going, I might say it was n t quite 
your affair to jump to the conclusion that we could 
n t change any note that you might happen to be 
carrying around. On the contrary, we can 

I handed the note to him, and said: 

" Oh, very well; I apologize." 

4He received it with a smile, one of those large 

smiles which goes all around over, and has folds in 

? * u 

it, and wrinkles, and spirals, and looks like the 
place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; 
and then in the act of his taking a glimpse of the 
bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow, and 
looked like those wavy, wormy spreads of lava 
which you find hardened on little levels on the side 
of Vesuvius. I never before saw a smile caught 
like that, and perpetuated. The man stood there 
holding the bill, and looking like that, and the pro 
prietor hustled up to see what was the matter, and 
said briskly: 

"Well, what s up ? what s the trouble ? what s 
wanting ? " 

I said: "There is n t any trouble. I m waiting for 
my change." 

" Come, come; get him his change, Tod; get him 
his change." 

Tod retorted: "Get him his change! It s easy 
to say, sir; but look at the bill yourself." 



THE 1,000, OOO BANK-NOTE. 21 

The proprietor took a look, gave a low, eloquent 
whistle, then made a dive for the pile of rejected 
clothing, and began to snatch it this way and that, 
talking all the time excitedly, and as if to himself: 

"Sell an eccentric millionaire such an unspeak 
able suit as that! Tod s a fool a born fool. Al 
ways doing something like this. Drives every mil 
lionaire away from this place, because he can t tell 
a millionaire from a tramp, and never could. Ah, 
here s the thing I m after. Please get those things 
off, sir, and throw them in the fire. Do me the favor 
to put on this shirt and this suit; it s just the thing, 
the very thing-Vplain, rich, modest, and just ducally 
nobby; made to order for a foreign prince you may 
know him, sir, his Serene Highness the Hospodar 
of Halifax; had to leave it with us and take a mourn 
ing-suit because his mother was going to die which 
she did n t. But that s all right; we can t always 
have things the way we that is, the way they 
there! trousers all right, they fit you to a charm, sir; 
now the waistcoat; aha, right again! now the coat 
lord! look at that, now! Perfect the whole thing! 
I never saw such a triumph in all my experience." 

I expressed my satisfaction. 

" Quite right, sir, quite right; ,it 11 do for a make 
shift, I m bound to say. J3ut wait till you see what 
we 11 get up for you on your own measure. Come, 



22 THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 

Tod, book and pen; get at it. Length of leg, 32 " 
and so on. Before I could get in a word he had 
measured me, and was giving orders for dress-suits, 
morning suits, shirts, and all sorts of things. When 
I got a chance I said: 

" But, my dear sir, I can t give these orders, unless 
you can wait indefinitely, or change the bill." 

"Indefinitely! It s a weak word, sir, a weak 
word. Eternally that s the word, sir. Tod, rush 
these things through, and send them to the gentle 
man s address without any waste of time. Let the 
minor customers wait. Set down the gentleman s 
address and " 

" I m changing my quarters. I will drop in and 
leave the new address." 

" Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment let 
me show you out, sir. There good day, sir, good 
day." 

/ Well, don t you see what was bound to happen ? 
I drifted naturally into buying whatever I wanted, 
and asking for change. Within a week I was sump 
tuously equipped with all needful comforts and lux 
uries, and was housed in an expensive private hotel 
in Hanover Square. \I took my dinners there, but 
for breakfast I stuck by Harris s humble feeding- 
house, where I had got my first meal on my million- 
pound bill. I was the making of Harris. The fact 



THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 2$ 

had gone all abroad that the foreign crank who car 
ried million-pound bills in his vest-pocket was the 
patron saint of the place. That was enough. From 
being a poor, struggling, little hand-to-mouth enter 
prise, it had become celebrated, and overcrowded 
with customers. Harris was so grateful that he 
forced loans upon me, and would not be denied; 
and so, pauper as I was, I had money to spend, and 
was living like the rich and the great. VI judged that 
there was going to be a crash by and by, but I was 
in, now, and must swim across or drown. f You see 
there was just that element of impending disaster to 
give a serious side, a sober side, yes, a tragic side, 
to a state of things which would otherwise have 
been purely ridiculous. In the night, in the dark, 
the tragedy part was always to the front, and always 
warning, always threatening; and so I moaned and 
tossed, and sleep was hard to find. But in the cheer 
ful daylight the tragedy element faded out and dis 
appeared, and I walked on air, and was happy to 
giddiness, to intoxication, you may say. 

And it was natural; foAl had become one of the 
notorieties of the metropolis of the world/ and it 
turned my head, not just a little, but a good deal. 
You could not take up a newspaper) English, 
Scotch, or Irish, .without finding in it one or more 
references to the "vest-pocket million-pounder" 



24 THE I t OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 

and his latest doings and sayings, At first, in these 
mentions, I was at the bottom of the personal-gos 
sip column; next, I was listed above the knights, 
next above the baronets, next above the barons, 
and so on, and so on, climbing steadily, as my noto 
riety augmented, until I reached the highest altitude 
possible, and there I remained, taking precedence 
of all dukes not royal, and of all ecclesiastics except 
the primate of all England. But mind, this was not 
fame; as yet I had achieved only notoriety. Then 
came the climaxing stroke fthe accolade, so to speak 
which in a single instance transmuted the perish 
able dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of 
fame: " Punch " caricatured me! Yes, I was a made 
man, now; my place was established.! I might be 
joked about still, but reverently, not hilariously, not 
rudely; I could be smiled at, but not laughed at. 
The time for that had gone by. " Punch" pictured 
me all a-flutter with rags, dickering with a beef-eater 
for the Tower of London. Well, you can imagine 
how it was with a young fellow who had never been 
taken notice of before, and now all of a sudden could 
n t say a thing that was n t taken up and repeated 
every where jjcould n t stir abroad without constant 
ly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, 
"There he goes; that s him!" could n t take his 
breakfast without a crowd to look on; could n t ap- 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 25 

pear in an opera-box without concentrating there 
the fire of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam 
in glory all day long| that is the amount of it. 

You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and 
every now and then appeared in them, so as to have 
the old pleasure of buying trifles, and being insulted, 
and then shooting the scoffer dead with the million- 
pound bill. But I could n t keep that up. The 
illustrated papers made the outfit so familiar that 
when I went out in it I was at once recognized and 
followed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase 
the man would offer me his whole shop on credit 
before I could pull my note on him. 

About the tenth day of my fame I went to fulfill 
my duty to my flag by paying my respects to the 
American minister. (^He received me with the en 
thusiasm proper in my case, upbraided me for being 
so tardy in my duty, and said that there was only 
one way to get his forgiveness, and that was to take 
the seat at his dinner-party that night made vacant 
by the illness of one of his guests. I said I would, 
and we got to talking. It turned out that he and 
my father had been schoolmates in boyhood, Yale 
students together later, and always warm friends up 
to my father s death. So; then he required me to 
put in at his house all the odd time I might have to 
spare, and I was very willing, of course. 



26 THE ^f, 000, 000 BANK-NOTE. 

In fact I was more than willing; I was glad. When 
the crash should come, he might somehow be able 
to save me from total destruction; I didn t know 
how, but he might think of a way, maybe. I could 
n t venture to unbosom myself to him at this late 
date, a thing which I would have been quick to do 
in the beginning of this awful career of mine in Lon 
don. No, I couldn t venture it now; I was in too 
deep; that is, too deep for me to be risking revela 
tions to so new a friend, though not clear beyond 
my depth, as / looked at it. Because, you see, with 
all my borrowing, I was carefully keeping within 
my means I mean within my salary. Of course I 
could n t know what my salary was going to be, but 
I had a good enough basis for an estimate in the 
fact that, if I won the bet, I was to have choice of 
any situation in that rich old gentleman s gift pro 
vided I was competent and I should certainly prove 
competent; I had n t any doubt about that. And 
as to the bet, I was n t worrying about that; I had 
always been lucky. Now my estimate of the salary 
was six hundred to a thousand a year; say, six hun 
dred for the first year, and so on up year by year, 
till I struck the upper figure by proved merit. At 
present I was only in debt for my first year s salary. 
Everybody had been trying to lend me money, but 
I had fought off the most of them on one pretext or 



THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 2j 

another; so this indebtedness represented only 300 
borrowed money, the other 300 represented my 
keep and my purchases. I believed my second year s 
salary would carry me through the rest of the month 
if I went on being cautious and economical, and I 
intended to look sharply out for that. My month 
ended, my employer back from his journey, I should 
be all right once more, for I should at once divide 
the two years salary among my creditors by assign 
ment, and get right down to my work.J 

It was a lovely dinner-party of fourteen. The 
Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter 
the Lady Anne - Grace - Eleanor - Celeste - and - so- 
forth-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess 
of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady 
Blatherskite, some untitled people of both sexes, 
the minister and his wife and daughter, and his 
daughter s visiting friend, an English girl of twenty- 
two, named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love 
with in two minutes, and she with me I could see 
it without glasses. There was still another guest, 
an American but I am a little ahead of my story. 
While the people were still in the drawing-room, 
whetting up for dinner, and coldly inspecting the 
late comers,}the servant announced: 

" Mr. Lloyd Hastings." 

The moment the usual civilities were over, Hast- 



28 THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE 

ings caught sight of me, and came straight with 
cordially outstretched hand ;{ then stopped short 
when about to shake, and said with an embarrassed 
look: 

" I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you." 

" Why, you do know me, old fellow." 

"No! Are you the the " 

" Vest-pocket monster ? I am, indeed. Don t be 
afraid to call me by my nickname ; I m used to it." 

" Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice 
I Ve seen your own name coupled with the nickname, 
but jit never occurred to me that you could be the 
Henry Adams referred to. Why, it is n t six months 
since you were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in 
Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights on an ex 
tra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the 
Gould and Curry Extension papers and statistics. 
I ((The idea of your being in London, and a vast mil 
lionaire, and a colossal celebrity ! Why, it s the 
Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can t take it 
in at all; can t realize it; give me time to settle the 
whirl in my head." 

" The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I 
am. I can t realize it myself." 

"Dear me, it is stunning, now is n t it ? Why, 
it s just three months to-day since we went to the 
Miners restaurant " 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 2 9 

"No; the What Cheer," 

" Right, it was the What Cheer; went there at 
two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after 
a hard six hours grind over those Extension papers, 
and I tried to persuade you to come to London with 
me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and 
pay all your expenses, and give you something over 
if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would 
not listen to me, said I would n t succeed, and you 
could n t afford to lose the run of business and be 
no end of time getting the hang of things again 
when you got back home. And yet here you are. 
How odd it all is ! How did you happen to come, 
and whatever did give you this incredible start ? " 

"Oh, just an accident. It s a long storyj a 
romance, a body may say. I 11 tell you all about 
it, but not now." 

"When?" 

" The end of this month." 

" That s more than a fortnight yet. It s too much 
of a strain on a person s curiosity. Make it a week/ 

" I can t. You 11 know why, by and by. But 
how s the trade getting along ? " 

His cheerfulness vanished like a breath/ and he 
said with a sigh : 

" You were a true prophet^ Hal^a true prophet. I 
wish I had n t come. I don t want to talk about it." 



3O THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

" But you must. You must come and stop with 
me to-night, when we leave here, and tell me all 
about it." 

"Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?" and the 
water showed in his eyes. 

" Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word."] 

" I m so grateful ! Just to find a human interest 
once more, in some voice and in some eye, in me 
and affairs of mine, after what I Ve been through 
here lord ! I could go down on my knees for it ! " 

He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and 
was all right and lively after that for the dinner 
which did n t come off. No; the usual thing hap 
pened, the thing that is always happening under 
that vicious and aggravating English system the 
matter of precedence could n t be settled, and so 
there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat din 
ner before they go out to dinner, because they know 
the risks they are running; but nobody ever warns 
the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap. 
Of course nobody was hurt this time, because we had 
all been to dinner, none of us being novices except 
Hastings, and he having been informed by the min 
ister at the time that he invited him that in deference 
to the English custom he had not provided any din 
ner.! Everybody took a lady and processioned down 
to the dining-room, because it is usual to go through 



THE /, OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE 31 

the motions; but there the dispute began. The 
Duke of Shoreditch wanted to take precedence, and 
sit at the head of the table, holding that he outrank 
ed a minister who represented merely a nation and 
not a monarch; but I stood for my rights, and re 
fused to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all 
dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed pre 
cedence of this one. It could n t be settled, of 
course\struggle as we might and did, he finally (and 
injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, 
and I " seeing " his Conqueror and " raising " him 
with Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown 
by my name, while he was of a collateral branch, as 
shown by his, and by his recent Norman origin; \ 
so we all processioned back to the drawing-room 
again and had a perpendicular lunch plate of sar 
dines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and 
stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence 
is not so strenuous; the two persons of highest rank 
chuck up a shilling, the one that wins has first go at 
his strawberry, and the loser gets the shilling. The 
next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. 
After refreshment, tables were brought, and we all 
played cribbage, sixpence a game. The English 
never play any game for amusement. If they can t 
make something or lose something, they don t 
care which, they won t play. 



32 THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 

We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, 
Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her 
that I could n t count my hands if they went above 
a double sequence; and when I struck home I never 
discovered it, and started up the outside row again, 
and would have lost the game every time, only the 
girl did the same, she being in just my condition, 
you see; and consequently neither of us ever got 
out, or cared to wonder why we did n t; we only 
just knew we were happy, and did n t wish to know 
anything else, and did n t want to be interrupted. 
And -I told her I did indeed told her I loved her; 
and she well, she blushed till her hair turned red, 
but she liked it ; she said she did. Oh, there was 
never such an evening ! Every time I pegged I 
put on a postscript; every time she pegged she ac 
knowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the 
same. Why, I could n t even say " Two for his 
heels" without adding, " My, how sweet you do 
look ! " and she would say, " Fifteen two, fifteen 
four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are 
sixteen do you think so ? " peeping out aslant 
from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and cun 
ning. Oh, it was just too-ioo \ 

Well, J was perfectly honest and square with her; 
told her I had n t a cent in the world but just the 
million-pound note she d heard so much talk about, 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 33 

and // did n t belong to me; and that started her 
curiosity, and then I talked low, and told her the 
whole history right from the start, and it nearly 
killed her, laughing. What in the nation she could 
find to laugh about, /could n t see butf there it was; 
every half minute some new detail would fetch her, 
and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a 
half to give her a chance to settle down again. 
Why, she laughed herself lame, she did indeed; I 
never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a 
painful story a story of a person s troubles and 
worries and fears produce just that kind of effect 
before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she 
could be so cheerful when there was n t anything to 
be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind 
of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of 
course I told her we should have to wait a couple 
of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but 
she did n t mind that^only she hoped I would be 
as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, 
and not let them run the least risk of trenching 
on our third year s pay. Then she began to get 
a little worried, and wondered if we were making 
any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher 
figure for the first year than I would get. This 
was good sense, and it made me feel a little less 
confident than I had been feeling before; but it 



34 THE /,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

\ 

gave me a good business idea, and I brought it 
frankly out./ 

"Portia, dear, would you mind going with me 
that day, when I confront those old gentlemen ? " 

She shrank a little, but said: 

" N-o; if my being with you would help hearten 
you. But would it be quite proper, do you think?" 

" No, I don t know that it would; in fact I m 
afraid it would n t: but you see, there s so much de 
pendent upon it that 

" Then I 11 go anyway, proper or improper," she 
said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. 
"Oh, I shall be so happy to think I m helping." 

" Helping, dear ? Why, you 11 be doing it all. 
You re so beautiful and so lovely and so winning, 
that, with you there I can pile our salary up till I 
break those good old fellows, and they 11 never 
have the heart to struggle." 

Sho ! you should have seen the rich blood mount, 
and her happy eyes shine ! 

"You wicked flatterer! There is n t a word of 
truth in what you say, but still I 11 go with you. 
Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people 
to look with your eyes." 

Were my doubts dissipated ? Was my confidence 
restored ? You may judge by this fact: privately I 
raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 35 

the spot. But I did n t tell her; I saved it for a sur 
prise. 

All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talk 
ing, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered 
my parlor, he brought me to myself with his fervent 
appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries. 

" Let me just stand here a little and look my fill ! 
Dear me, it s a palace; it s just a palace! And in it 
everything a body could desire, including cozy coal 
fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it does n t 
merely make me realize how rich you are; it makes 
me realize, to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I 
am how poor I am, and how miserable, how de 
feated, routed, annihilated ! " 

Plague take it ! this language gave me the cold 
shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me 
comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch 
crust, with a crater underneath, /did n t know I 
had been dreaming that is, I had n t been allow 
ing myself to know it for a while back; but now 
oh, dear ! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a 
lovely girl s happiness or woe in my hands, and 
nothing in front of me but a salary which might 
never oh, would never materialize ! Oh, oh, oh, 
I am ruined past hope; nothing can save me ! 

"Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your 
daily income would 



36 THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

" Oh, my daily income ! Here, down with this 
hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here s with 
you ! Or, no you re hungry; sit down and " 

"Not a bite for me; I m past it. I can t eat, 
these days; but I 11 drink with you till I drop. 
Come ! " 

" Barrel for barrel, I m with you ! Ready ? Here 
we go ! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while 
I brew." 

MJnreel it ? What, again ? " 

" Again ? What do you mean by that ? " 

"Why, I mean do you want to hear it over 
again ? " 

" Do I want to hear it over again ? This is a puz 
zler. Wait; don t take any more of that liquid. 
You don t need it." 

" Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Did n t I 
tell you the whole story on the way here ? " 

"You?" 

"Yes, I." 

" I 11 be hanged if I heard a word of it." 

" Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. 
What did you take up yonder at the minister s ? " 

Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up, like a 
man. 

" I took the dearest girl in this world prisoner!" 

So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and 






THE 7,000,OOO BANK-NOTE. 37 

shook, and shook till our hands ached; and he did 
n t blame me for not having heard a word of a story 
which had lasted while we walked three miles.) He 
just sat down then, like the patient, good fellow he 
was,)and told it all lover again. Synopsized, it 
amounted to this: He had come to England with 
what he thought was a grand opportunity; he had 
an " option" to sell the Gould and Curry Extension 
for the " locators" of it, and keep all he could get 
over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had 
pulled every wire he knew of, had left no honest ex 
pedient untried, had spent nearly all the money he 
had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary 
capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run 
out at the end of the month. In a word, he was 
ruined. Then he jumped upfand cried out : 

" Henry, you can save me ! ^You can save me) and 
you re the only man in the universe that can. Will 
you do it ? Wont you do it ? " 

" Tell me how. Speak out, my boy." 

" Give me a million and my passage home for my 
option ! Don t, don t refuse ! " 

I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the 
point of coming out with the words, " Lloyd, I m a 
pauper myself absolutely penniless, and in debt!* 
But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, 
and I gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself 



3 THE 7,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 

down till I was as cold as a capitalist. Then I said, 
in a commercial and self-possessed way : 

" I will save you, Lloyd " 

" Then I m already saved J God be merciful to 
you forever ! If ever I " 

"Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not 
in that way; nor that would not be fair to you, after 
your hard work, and the risks you Ve run. I don t 
need to buy mines; I can keep my capital moving, 
in a commercial centre like London without that; 
it s what I m at, all the time; but here is what I 11 
do.J 1 know all about that mine, of course; I know 
its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody 
wishes it. You shall sell out inside of the fortnight 
for three millions cash, using my name freely, and 
we 11 divide, share and share alike." 

Do you know, he would have danced the furniture 
to kindling-wood in his insane joy, and broken 
everything on the place, if I had n t tripped him up 
and tied him. 

Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying : 

"I may use your name ! Your name think of 
it ! Man, they 11 flock in droves, these rich Lon 
doners; they 11 fight for that stock ! I m a made 
man, I m a made man forever, and I 11 never forget 
you as long as I live ! " 

In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz ! 



THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 39 

I had n t anything to do, day after day, but sit at 
home, and say to all comers : 

"Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the 
man, and I know the mine. His character is above 
reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he 
asks for it." 

/Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minis 
ter s with Portia. I did t say a word to her about 
the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked sal 
ary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes 
love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary 
together. And my ! the interest the minister s wife 
and daughter took in our little affair, and the end 
less ingenuities they invented to save us from inter 
ruption, and to keep the minister in the dark and 
unsuspicious well, it was just lovely of them !J 

When the month was up, at last, I had a million 
dollars to my credit in the London and County 
Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. 
Dressed at my level best, I drove, byfthe house in 
Portland Place, judged by the look of things that 
my birds were home again, went on)to(vvard^he min 
ister s and got my precious, and we started 5 back, 
talking salary with all our might.) She was so ex 
cited and anxious Hhat it made her just intolerably 
beautiful. I said : 

" Dearie, the way you re looking it s a crime to 



40 THE 7,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

strike for a salary a single penny under three thou 
sand a year." 

" Henry, Henry, you 11 ruin us !" 

" Don t you be afraid. Just keep up those looks, 
and trust to me. It 11 all come out right." 

So as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up 
her courage all the way. She kept pleading with 
me, and saying : 

" Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much 
we may get no salary at all; and then what will be 
come of us, with no way in the world to earn our 
living ?" 

We were ushered in by that same servant, and 
there they were, the two old gentlemen. Of course 
they were surprised to see that wonderful creature 
with me, but I said : 

" It s all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay 
and helpmate." 

And I introduced them to her, and called them 
by name. It did n t surprise them; they knew I 
would know enough to consult the directory. They 
seated us, and were very polite to me, and very 
solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put 
her as much at her ease as they could. Then I 
said : 

" Gentlemen, I am ready to report." 

" We are glad to hear it," said my man, "for now 



THE 1,0 OO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 41 

we can decide the bet which my brother Abel and I 
made. If you have won for me, you shall have any 
situation in my gift. Have you the million-pound 
note ?" 

" Here it is, sir," and I handed it to him. 

"I ve won!" he shouted, and slapped Abel on 
the back. " Now what do you say, brother ?" 

"I say he dfo/ survive, and I ve lost twenty thousand 
pounds. I never would have believed it." 

"I Ve a further report to make," I said, "and a 
pretty long one. I want you to let me come soon, 
and detail my whole month s history; and I promise 
you it s worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at 
that." 

" What, man ! Certificate of deposit for 200,000? 
Is it yours ?" 

" Mine. I earned it by thirty days judicious use 
of that little loan you let me have. And the only 
use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer the bill 
in change." 

( Come, this is astonishing ! It s incredible, man !" 

" Never mind, I 11 prove it. Don t take my word 
unsupported." 

But now Portia s turn was come to be surprised. 
Her eyes were spread wide, and she said : 

" Henry, is that really your money ? Have you 
been fibbing to me ?" 



42 THE 7,000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

" I have indeed, dearie. But you 11 forgive me, 
/know." 

She put up an arch pout, and said : 

" Don t you be so sure. You are a naughty thing 
to deceive me so !" 

" Oh, you 11 get over it, sweetheart, you 11 get 
over it; it was only fun, you know. Come, let s be 
going." 

" But wait, wait ! The situation, you know. I 
want to give you the situation," said my man. 

"Well," I said, "I m just as grateful as I can be, 
but really I don t want one." 

" But you can have the very choicest one in my 
gift." 

"Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don t 
even want that one." 

" Henry, I m ashamed of you. You don t half 
thank the good gentleman. May I do it for you ?" 

" Indeed you shall, dear, if you can improve it. 
Let us see you try." 

She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her 
arm round his neck, and kissed him right on the 
mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with 
laughter, but I was dumfounded, just petrified, as 
you may say. f Portia said : 

" Papa, he has said you have n t a situation in 
your gift that he d take; and I feel just as hurt as " 



THE I,OOO,OOO BANK-NOTE. 43 

" My darling! is that your papa ?" 

" Yes; he s my steppapa, and the dearest one that 
ever was. You understand now, don t you, why I 
was able to laugh when you told me at the minister s, 
not knowing my relationships, what trouble and 
worry papa s and Uncle Abel s scheme was giving 
you?" 

Of course I spoke right up, now, without any fool 
ing, and went straight to the point. 

"Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what 
I said. You have got a situation open that I want." 

" Name it." 

" Son-in-law." 

" Well, well, well ! But you know, if you have n t 
ever served in that capacity, you of course can t fur 
nish recommendations of a sort to satisfy the condi 
tions of the contract, and so " 

"Try me oh, do, I beg of you ! Only just try 
me thirty or forty years, and if 

" Oh, well, all right; it s but a little thing to ask. 
take her along." 

Happy, we too ? There are not words enough in 
the unabridged to describe it. And when London 
got the whole history, a day or two later, of my 
month s adventures with that bank-note, and how 
they ended, did London talk, and have a good 
time ? Yes. 



44 THE 1.000,000 BANK-NOTE. 

My Portia s papa took that friendly and hospitable 
bill back to the Bank of England and cashed it; 
then the Bank canceled it and made him a present 
of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has 
always hung in its frame in the sacredest place in our 
home, ever since. For it gave me my Portia. But 
for it I could not have remained in London, would 
not have appeared at the minister s, never should 
have met her. And so I always say, " Yes, it s a 
million-pounder, as you see; but it never made but 
one purchase in its life, and then got the article for 
only about a tenth part of its value." 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

A MANUSCRIPT WITH A HISTORY. 

NOTE TO THE EDITOR. By glancing over the enclosed 
bundle of rusty old manuscript, you will perceive that I once 
made a great discovery : the discovery that certain sorts of 
things which, from the beginning of the world, had always 
been regarded as merely " curious coincidences" that is to 
say, accidents -were no more accidental than is the sending 
and receiving of a telegram an accident. I made this discov 
ery sixteen or seventeen years ago, and gave it a name 
" Mental Telegraphy." It is the same thing around the outer 
edges of which the Psychical Society of England began to 
grope (and play with) four or five years ago, and which they 
named "Telepathy." Within the last two or three years 
they have penetrated toward the heart of the matter, how 
ever, and have found out that mind can act upon mind in a 
quite detailed and elaborate way over vast stretches of land 
and water. And they have succeeded in doing, by their great 
credit and influence, what I could never have done they 
have convinced the world that mental telegraphy is not a jest, 
but a fact, and that it is a thing not rare, but exceedingly 
common. They have done our age a service and a very 
great service, I think. 

In this old manuscript you will find mention of an extraor 
dinary experience of mine in the mental telegraphic line, of 
date about the year 1874 or 1875 the one concerning the 
Great Bonanza book. It was this experience that called my 
attention to the matter under consideration. I began to keep 
a record, after that, of such experiences of mine as seemed 
explicable by the theory that minds telegraph thoughts to 
each other. In 1878 I went to Germany and began to write 

45 



46 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

the book called A Tramp Abroad. The bulk of this old batch 
of manuscript was written at that time and for that book. 
But I removed it when I came to revise the volume for the 
press ; for I feared that the public would treat the thing as a 
joke and throw it aside, whereas I was in earnest. 

At home, eight or ten years ago, I tried to creep in under 
shelter of an authority grave enough to protect the article 
from ridicule the North American Review. But Mr. Met- 
calf was too wary for me. He said that to treat these mere 
"coincidences" seriously was a thing which the Re^&gt;^ew 
couldn t dare to do ; that I must put either my name or my 
nom de plume to the article, and thus save the Review from 
harm. But I could n t consent to that; it would be the surest 
possible way to defeat my desire that the public should re 
ceive the thing seriously, and be willing to stop and give it 
some fair degree of attention. Sol pigeonholed the MS., 
because I could not get it published anonymously. 

Now see how the world has moved since then. These 
small experiences of mine, which were too formidable at that 
time for admission to a grave magazine if the magazine 
must allow them to appear as something above and beyond 
"accidents" and "coincidences " are trifling and common 
place now, since the flood of light recently cast upon mental 
telegraphy by the intelligent labors of the Psychical Society. 
But I think they are worth publishing, just to show what 
harmless and ordinary matters were considered dangerous 
and incredible eight or ten years ago. 

As I have said, the bulk of this old manuscript was written 
in 1878 ; a later part was written from time to time two, three, 
and four years afterward. The " Postscript " I add to-day. 

TV /I AY, 78. Another of those apparently trifling 
*! things has happened to me which puzzle and 
perplex all men every now and then, keep them think 
ing an hour or two, and leave their minds barren of 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 47 

explanation or solution at last. Here it is and it 
looks inconsequential enough, I am obliged to say. 
A few days ago I said: " It must be that Frank 
Millet does n t know we are in Germany, or he would 
have written long before this. I have been on the 
point of dropping him a line at least a dozen times 
during the past six weeks, but I always decided to 
wait a day or two longer, and see if we should n t 
hear from him. But now I will write." And so I 
did. I directed the letter to Paris, and thought, 
"Now we shall hear from him before this letter is 
fifty miles from Heidelberg it always happens 
so." 

True enough; but why should it? That is the 
puzzling part of it. We are always talking about 
letters " crossing" each other, for that is one of the 
very commonest accidents of this life. We call it 
"accident," but perhaps we misname it. We have 
the instinct a dozen times a year that the letter we 
are writing is going to "cross" the other person s 
letter; and if the reader will rack his memory a lit 
tle he will recall the fact that this presentiment had 
strength enough to it to make him cut his letter 
down to a decided briefness, because it would be a 
waste of time to write a letter which was going to 
" cross," and hence be a useless letter. I think that 
in my experience this instinct has generally come 



48 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

to me in cases where I had put off my letter a good 
while in the hope that the other person would 
write. 

Yes, as I was saying, I had waited five or six 
weeks; then I wrote but three lines, because I felt 
and seemed to know that a letter from Millet would 
cross mine. And so it did. He wrote the same day that 
I wrote. The letters crossed each other. His letter 
went to Berlin, care of the American minister, who 
sent it to me. In this letter Millet said he had been 
trying for six weeks to stumble upon somebody who 
knew my German address, and at last the idea had 
occurred to him that a letter sent to the care of the 
embassy at Berlin might possibly find me. 

Maybe it was an "accident" that he finally de 
termined to write me at the same moment that I 
finally determined to write him, but I think not. 

With me the most irritating thing has been to 
wait a tedious time in a purely business matter, 
hoping that the other party will do the writing, and 
then sit down and do it myself, perfectly satisfied 
that that other man is sitting down at the same 
moment to write a letter which will "cross" mine. 
And yet one must go on writing, just the same; be 
cause if you get up from your table and postpone, 
that other man will do the same thing, exactly as if 
you two were harnessed together like the Siamese 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 49 

twins, and must duplicate each other s move 
ments. 

Several months before I left home a New York 
firm did some work about the house for me, and did 
not make a success of it, as it seemed to me. When 
the bill came, I wrote and said I wanted the work 
perfected before I paid. They replied that they 
were very busy, but that as soon as they could spare 
the proper man the thing should be done. I waited 
more than two months, enduring- as patiently as 
possible the companionship of bells which would 
fire away of their own accord sometimes when no 
body was touching them, and at other times would 
n t ring though you struck the button with a sledge 
hammer. Many a time I got ready to write and 
then postponed it; but at last I sat down one even 
ing and poured out my grief to the extent of a page 
or so, and then cut my letter suddenly short, because 
a strong instinct told me that the firm had begun to 
move in the matter. When I came down to break 
fast next morning the postman had not yet taken 
my letter away, but the electrical man had been 
there, done his work, and was gone again ! He had 
received his orders the previous evening from his 
employers, and had come up by the night train. 

If that was an "accident," it took about three 
months to get it up in good shape. 



50 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

One evening last summer I arrived in Washing 
ton, registered at the Arlington Hotel, and went to 
my room. I read and smoked until ten o clock; 
then, finding I was not yet sleepy, I thought I would 
take a breath of fresh air. So I went forth in the 
rain, and tramped through one street after another 
in an aimless and enjoyable way. I knew that Mr. 

O , a friend of mine, was in town, and I wished 

I might run across him; but I did not propose to 
hunt for him at midnight, especially as I did not 
know where he was stopping. Toward twelve 
o clock the streets had become so deserted that I felt 
lonesome; so I stepped into a cigar shop far up the 
Avenue, and remained there fifteen minutes, listen 
ing to some bummers discussing national politics. 
Suddenly the spirit of prophecy came upon me, and 
I said to myself, " Now I will go out at this door, 
turn to the left, walk ten steps, and meet Mr. O 
face to face." I did it, too ! I could not see his face, 
because he had an umbrella before it, and it was 
pretty dark anyhow, but he interrupted the man he 
was walking and talking with, and I recognized his 
voice and stopped him. 

That I should step out there and stumble upon 
Mr. O - was nothing, but that I should know be 
forehand that I was going to do it was a good deal. 
It is a very curious thing when you come to look at 




MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 51 

it. I stood far within the cigar shop when I deliv 
ered my prophecy; I walked about five steps to the 
door, opened it, closed it after me, walked down a 
flight of three steps to the sidewalk, then turned to 
the left and walked four or five more, and found my 
man. I repeat that in itself the thing was nothing; 
but to know it would happen so beforehand, was n t 
that really curious ? 

I have criticised absent people so often, and then 
discovered, to my humiliation, that I was talking 
with their relatives, that I have grown superstitious 
about that sort of thing and dropped it. How like 
an idiot one feels after a blunder like that ! 

We are always mentioning people, and in that 
very instant they appear before us. We laugh, and 
say, "Speak of the devil," and so forth, and there 
we drop it, considering it an "accident." It is a 
cheap and convenient way of disposing of a grave 
and very puzzling mystery. The fact is it does 
seem to happen too often to be an accident. 

Now I come to the oddest thing that ever hap 
pened to me. Two or three years ago I was lying 
in bed, idly musing, one morning it was the 2d of 
March when suddenly a red-hot new idea came 
whistling down into my camp, and exploded with 
such comprehensive effectiveness as to sweep the 
vicinity clean of rubbishy reflections, and fill the air 



52 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY, 

with their dust and flying fragments. This idea, 
stated in simple phrase, was that the time was ripe 
and the market ready for a certain book; a book 
which ought to be written at once; a book which 
must command attention and be of peculiar interest 
to wit, a book about the Nevada silver mines. 
The " Great Bonanza " was a new wonder then, and 
everybody was talking about it. It seemed to me 
that the person best qualified to write this book was 
Mr. William H. Wright, a journalist of Virginia, 
Nevada, by whose side I had scribbled many 
months when I was a reporter there ten or twelve 
years before. He might be alive still; he might be 
dead; I could not tell; but I would write him, any 
way. I began by merely and modestly suggesting 
that he make such a book; but my interest grew as 
I went on, and I ventured to map out what I 
thought ought to be the plan of the work, he being 
an old friend, and not given to taking good inten 
tions for ill. I even dealt with details, and sug 
gested the order and sequence which they should 
follow. I was about to put the manuscript in an 
envelope, when the thought occurred to me that if 
this book should be written at my suggestion, and 
then no publisher happened to want it, I should feel 
uncomfortable; so I concluded to keep my letter 
back until I should have secured a publisher. I 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 



53 



pigeonholed my document, and dropped a note to 
my own publisher, asking him to name a day for a 
business consultation. He was out of town on a far 
journey. My note remained unanswered, and at 
the end of three or four days the whole matter had 
passed out of my mind. On the 9th of March the 
postman brought three or four letters, and among 
them a thick one whose superscription was in a 
hand which seemed dimly familiar to me. I could 
not "place "it at first, but presently I succeeded. 
Then I said to a visiting relative who was present: 

" Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you every 
thing this letter contains date, signature, and all 
without breaking the seal. It is from a Mr. Wright, 
of Virginia, Nevada, and is dated the 2d of March 
seven days ago. Mr. Wright proposes to make a 
book about the silver mines and the Great Bonanza, 
and asks what I, as a friend, think of the idea. He 
says his subjects are to be so and so, their order and 
sequence so and so, and he will close with a history 
of the chief feature of the book, the Great Bonanza." 

I opened the letter, and showed that I had stated 
the date and the contents correctly. Mr. Wright s 
letter simply contained what my own letter, written 
on the same date, contained, and mine still lay in 
its pigeonhole, where it had been lying during the 
seven days since it was written. 



54 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

There was no clairvoyance about this, if I rightly 
comprehend what clairvoyance is. I think the clair 
voyant professes to actually see concealed writing, 
and read it off word for word. This was not my 
case. I only seemed to know, and to know abso 
lutely, the contents of the letter in detail and due 
order, but I had to word them myself. I translated 
them, so to speak, out of Wright s language into my 
own. 

Wright s letter and the one which I had written 
to him but never sent were in substance the same. 

Necessarily this could not come by accident; 
such elaborate accidents cannot happen. Chance 
might have duplicated one or two of the details, but 
she would have broken down on the rest. I could 
not doubt there was no tenable reason for doubt 
ing that Mr. Wright s mind and mine had been in 
close and crystal-clear communication with each 
other across three thousand miles of mountain and 
desert on the morning of the 2d of March. I did 
not consider that both minds originated that suc 
cession of ideas, but that one mind originated them, 
and simply telegraphed them to the other. I was 
curious to know which brain was the telegrapher 
and which the receiver, so I wrote and asked for 
particulars. Mr. Wright s reply showed that his 
mind had done the originating and telegraphing 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 55 

and mine the receiving. Mark that significant 
thing, now; consider for a moment how many a 
splendid "original" idea has been unconsciously 
stolen from a man three thousand miles away! If 
one should question that this is so, let him look into 
the cyclopaedia and con once more that curious 
thing in the history of inventions which has puzzled 
every one so much that is, the frequency with 
which the same machine or other contrivance has 
been invented at the same time by several persons 
in different quarters of the globe. The world was 
without an electric telegraph for several thousand 
years; then Professor Henry, the American, Wheat- 
stone in England, Morse on the sea, and a German 
in Munich, all invented it at the same time. The 
discovery of certain ways of applying steam was 
made in two or three countries in the same year. 
Is it not possible that inventors are constantly and 
unwittingly stealing each other s ideas whilst they 
stand thousands of miles asunder ? 

Last spring a literary friend of mine,* who lived 
a hundred miles away, paid me a visit, and in the 
course of our talk he said he had made a discovery 
conceived an entirely new idea one which cer 
tainly had never been used in literature. He told 
me what it was. I handed him a manuscript, and 
* W, D. Howells. 



56 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

said he would find substantially the same idea in 
that a manuscript which I had written a week be 
fore. The idea had been in my mind since the pre 
vious November; it had only entered his while I 
was putting it on paper, a week gone by. He had 
not yet written his; so he left it unwritten, and 
gracefully made over all his right and title in the 
idea to me. 

The following statement, which I have clipped 
from a newspaper, is true. I had the facts from Mr. 
Howells s lips when the episode was new: 

"A remarkable story of a literary coincidence is told of 
Mr. Howells s Atlantic Monthly serial Dr. Breen s Practice. 
A lady of Rochester, New York, contributed to the magazine, 
after Dr. Breen s Practice was in type, a short story which 
so much resembled Mr. Howells s that he felt it necessary to 
call upon her and explain the situation of affairs in order that 
no charge of plagiarism might be preferred against him. He 
showed her the proof-sheets of his story, and satisfied her 
that the similarity between her work and his was one of those 
strange coincidences which have from time to time occurred 
in the literary world." 

I had read portions of Mr. Howells s story, both 
in MS. and in proof, before the lady offered her con 
tribution to the magazine. 

Here is another case. I clip it from a newspaper: 

" The republication of Miss Alcott s novel Moods recalls to 
a writer in the Boston Post a singular coincidence which was 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY, 57 

brought to light before the book was first published: Miss 
Anna M. Crane, of Baltimore, published Emily Chester, a 
novel which was pronounced a very striking and strong story. 
A comparison of this book with Moods showed that the two 
writers, though entire strangers to each other, and living 
hundreds of miles apart, had both chosen the same subject 
for their novels, had followed almost the same line of treat 
ment up to a certain point, where the parallel ceased, and the 
denouements were entirely opposite. And even more curious, 
the leading characters in both books had identically the same 
names, so that the names in Miss Alcott s novel had to be 
changed. Then the book was published by Loring. " 

Four or five times within my recollection there 
has been a lively newspaper war in this country 
over poems whose authorship was claimed by two 
or three different people at the same time. There 
was a war of this kind over " Nothing to Wear," 
Beautiful Snow," " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," 
and also over one of Mr. Will Carleton s early bal 
lads, I think. These were all blameless cases of 
unintentional and unwitting mental telegraphy, I 
judge. 

A word more as to Mr. Wright. He had had his 
book in his mind some time; consequently he, and 
not I, had originated the idea of it. The subject 
was entirely foreign to my thoughts; I was wholly 
absorbed in other things. Yet this friend, whom I 
had not seen and had hardly thought of for eleven 
years, was able to shoot his thoughts at me across 



5 8 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

three thousand miles of country, and fill my head 
with them, to the exclusion of every other interest, 
in a single moment. He had begun his letter after 
finishing his work on the morning paper a little 
after three o clock, he said. When it was three 
in the morning in Nevada it was about six in Hart 
ford, where I lay awake thinking about nothing in 
particular; and just about that time his ideas came 
pouring into my head from across the continent, 
and I got up and put them on paper, under the im 
pression that they were my own original thoughts. 

I have never seen any mesmeric or clairvoyant 
performances or spiritual manifestations which were 
in the least degree convincing a fact which is not 
of consequence, since my opportunities have been 
meagre; but I am forced to believe that one human 
mind (still inhabiting the flesh) can communicate 
with another, over any sort of a distance, and with 
out any artificial preparation of " sympathetic con 
ditions " to act as a transmitting agent. I suppose 
that when the sympathetic conditions happen to ex 
ist the two minds communicate with each other, and 
that otherwise they don t; and I suppose that if the 
sympathetic conditions could be kept up right along, 
the two minds would continue to correspond with 
out limit as to time. 

Now there is that curious thing which happens to 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 



59 



everybody: suddenly a succession of thoughts or 
sensations flocks in upon you, which startles you 
with the weird idea that you have ages ago experi 
enced just this succession of thoughts or sensations 
in a previous existence. The previous existence is 
possible, no doubt, but I am persuaded that the so 
lution of this hoary mystery lies not there, but in the 
fact that some far-off stranger has been telegraphing 
his thoughts and sensations into your consciousness, 
and that he stopped because some counter-current 
or other obstruction intruded and broke the line of 
communication. Perhaps they seem repetitions to 
you because they are repetitions, got at second hand 
from the other man. Possibly Mr. Brown, the 
" mind-reader," reads other people s minds, possibly 
he does not; but I know of a surety that I have read 
another man s mind, and therefore I do not see why 
Mr. Brown should n t do the like also. 

I wrote the foregoing about three years ago, in 
Heidelberg, and laid the manuscript aside, purpos 
ing to add to it instances of mind-telegraphing from 
time to time as they should fall under my experi 
ence. Meantime the &lt;4 crossing " of letters has been 
so frequent as to become monotonous. However, I 
have managed to get something useful out of this 
hint; for now, when I get tired of waiting upon a 



6O MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

man whom I very much wish to hear from, I sit 
down and compel him to write, whether he wants to 
or not; that is to say, I sit down and write him, and 
then tear my letter up, satisfied that my act has 
forced him to write me at the same moment. I. do 
not need to mail my letter the writing it is the 
only essential thing. 

Of course I have grown superstitious about this 
letter-crossing business this was natural. We staid 
awhile in Venice after leaving Heidelberg. One day 
I was going down the Grand Canal in a gondola, 
when I heard a shout behind me, and looked around 
to see what the matter was; a gondola was rapidly 
following, and the gondolier was making signs to 
me to stop. I did so, and the pursuing boat ranged 
up alongside. There was an American lady in it 
a resident of Venice. She was in a good deal of 
distress. She said: 

" There s a New York gentleman and his wife at 
the Hotel Britannia who arrived a week ago, ex 
pecting to find news of their son, whom they have 
heard nothing about during eight months. There 
was no news. The lady is down sick with despair; 
the gentleman can t sleep or eat. Their son arrived 
at San Francisco eight months ago, and announced 
the fact in a letter to his parents the same day. 
That is the last trace of him. The parents have 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 6 1 

been in Europe ever since; but their trip has been 
spoiled, for they have occupied their time simply in 
drifting restlessly from place to place, and writing 
letters everywhere and to everybody, begging for 
news of their son; but the mystery remains as dense 
as ever. Now the gentleman wants to stop writing 
and go to cabling. He wants to cable San Fran 
cisco. He has never done it before, because he is 
afraid of of he does n t know what death of his 
son, no doubt. But he wants somebody to advise him 
to cable; wants me to do it. Now I simply can t; 
for if no news came, that mother yonder would die. 
So I have chased you up in order to get you to sup 
port me in urging him to be patient, and put the 
thing off a week or two longer; it may be the sav 
ing of this lady. Come along; let s not lose any 
time." 

So I went along, but I had a programme of my 
own. When I was introduced to the gentleman I 
said: " I have some superstitions, but they are wor 
thy of respect. If you will cable San Francisco im 
mediately, you will hear news of your son inside of 
twenty-four hours. I don t know that you will get 
the news from San Francisco, but you will get it 
from somewhere. The only necessary thing is to 
cad le that is all. The news will come within 
twenty-four hours. Cable Peking, if you prefer; 



62 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

there is no choice in this matter. This delay is all 
occasioned by your not cabling long ago, when you 
were first moved to do it." 

It seems absurd that this gentleman should have 
been cheered up by this nonsense, but he was; he 
brightened up at once, and sent his cablegram; and 
next day, at noon, when a long letter arrived from 
his lost son, the man was as grateful to me as if I 
had really had something to do with the hurrying 
up of that letter. The son had shipped from San 
Francisco in a sailing vessel, and his letter was 
written from the first port he touched at, months 
afterward. 

This incident argues nothing, and is valueless. I 
insert it only to show how strong is the superstition 
which " letter-crossing" has bred in me. I was so 
sure that a cablegram sent to any place, no matter 
where, would defeat itself by " crossing " the incom 
ing news, that my confidence was able to raise up 
a hopeless man, and make him cheery and hopeful. 

But here are two or three incidents which come 
strictly under the head of mind-telegraphing. One 
Monday morning, about a year ago, the mail came 
in, and I picked up one of the letters and said to a 
friend: " Without opening this letter I will tell you 
what it says. It is from Mrs. - , and she says she 
was in New York last Saturday, and was purposing 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 63 

to run up here in the afternoon train and surprise us, 
but at the last moment changed her mind and re 
turned westward to her home." 

I was right; my details were exactly correct. Yet 

we had had no suspicion that Mrs. was coming 

to New York, or that she had even a remote inten 
tion of visiting us. 

I smoke a good deal that is to say, all the time 
so, during seven years, I have tried to keep a box 
of matches handy, behind a picture on the mantel 
piece; but I have had to take it out in trying, be 
cause George (colored), who makes the fires and 
lights the gas, always uses my matches, and never 
replaces them. Commands and persuasions have 
gone for nothing with him all these seven years. 
One day last summer, when our family had been 
away from home several months, I said to a mem 
ber of the household: 

" Now, with all this long holiday, and nothing in 
the way to interrupt 

" I can finish the sentence for you, "said the mem 
ber of the household. 

" Do it, then," said I. 

" George ought to be able, by practicing, to learn 
to let those matches alone." 

It was correctly done. That was what I was go 
ing to say. Yet until that moment George and the 



64 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

matches had not been in my mind for three months, 
and it is plain that the part of the sentence which I 
uttered offers not the least cue or suggestion of what 
I was purposing to follow it with. 

My mother* is descended from the younger of two 
English brothers named Lambton, *vho settled in 
this country a few generations ago. The tradition 
goes that the elder of the two eventually fell heir to 
a certain estate in England (now an earldom), and 
died right away. This has always been the way 
with our family. They always die when they could 
make anything by not doing it. The two Lambtons 
left plenty of Lambtons behind them; and when at 
last, about fifty years ago, the English baronetcy 
was exalted to an earldom, the great tribe of Amer 
ican Lambtons began to bestir themselves that is, 
those descended from the elder branch. Ever since 
that day one or another of these has been fretting 
his life uselessly away with schemes to get at his 
" rights." The present " rightful earl "I mean the 
American one used to write me occasionally, and 
try to interest me in his projected raids upon the 
title and estates by offering me a share in the lat 
ter portion of the spoil; but I have always managed 
to resist his temptations. 

Well, one day last summer I was lying under a 
* She was still living when this was written. 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 65 

tree, thinking about nothing in particular, when an 
absurd idea flashed into my head, and I said to a 
member of the household, "Suppose I should live 
to be ninety-two, and dumb and blind and toothless, 
and just as I was gasping out what was left of me on 
my death-bed 

"Wait, I will finish the sentence," said the mem 
ber of the household. 

" Go on," said I. 

" Somebody should rush in with a document, and 
say, All the other heirs are dead, and you are the 
Earl of Durham ! " 

That is truly what I was going to say. Yet until 
that moment the subject had not entered my mind 
or been referred to in my hearing for months before. 
A few years ago this thing would have astounded me, 
but the like could not much surprise me now, though 
it happened every week; for I think I knovu now that 
mind can communicate accurately with mind with 
out the aid of the slow and clumsy vehicle of speech. 

This age does seem to have exhausted invention 
nearly; still, it has one important contract on its 
hands yet the invention of the phrenophone ; that 
is to say, a method whereby the communicating of 
mind with mind may be brought under command 
and reduced to certainty and system. The telegraph 
and the telephone are going to become too slow 



66 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

and wordy for our needs. We must have the thought 
itself shot into our minds from a distance; then, if 
we need to put it into words, we can do that tedious 
work at our leisure. Doubtless the something which 
conveys our thoughts through the air from brain to 
brain is a finer and subtler form of electricity, and 
all we need do is to find out how to capture it and 
how to force it to do its work, as we have had to do 
in the case of the electric currents. Before the day 
of telegraphs neither one of these marvels would 
have seemed any easier to achieve than the other. 

While I am writing this, doubtless somebody on 
the other side of the globe is writing it too. The 
question is, am I inspiring him or is he inspiring me ? 
I cannot answer that; but that these thoughts have 
been passing through somebody else s mind all the 
time I have been setting them down I have no sort 
of doubt. 

I will close this paper with a remark which I found 
some time ago in Boswell s Johnson: 

Voltaire s Candide is wonderfully similar in its 
plan and conduct to Johnson s Rasselas ; insomuch 
that I have heard Johnson say that if they had not 
been published so closely one after the other that 
there was not time for imitation, it would have been 
in vain to deny tliat the scheme of that which came 
latest was taken from the other." 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 67 

The two men were widely separated from each 
other at the time, and the sea lay between. 

POSTSCRIPT. 

In the Atlantic for June, 1882, Mr. John Fiske re 
fers to the often-quoted Darwin-and-Wallace "co 
incidence" : 

"I alluded, just now, to the unforeseen circumstance 
which led Mr. Darwin in 1859 to break his long silence, and 
to write and publish the Origin of Species. This circumstance 
served, no less than the extraordinary success of his book, to 
show how ripe the minds of men had become for entertaining 
such views as those which Mr. Darwin propounded. In 1858 
Mr. Wallace, who was then engaged in studying the natural 
history of the Malay Archipelago, sent to Mr. Darwin (as to 
the man most likely to understand him) a paper in which he 
sketched the outlines of a theory identical with that upon 
which Mr. Darwin had so long been at work. The same se 
quence of observed facts and inferences that had led Mr. 
Darwin to the discovery of natural selection and its con 
sequences had led Mr. Wallace to the very threshold of the 
same discovery ; but in Mr. Wallace s mind the theory had 
by no means been wrought out to the same degree of com 
pleteness to which it had been wrought in the mind of Mr. 
Darwin. In the preface to his charming book on Natural 
Selection, Mr. Wallace, with rare modesty and candor, ac 
knowledges that whatever value his speculations may have 
had, they have been utterly surpassed in richness and cogency 
of proof by those of Mr. Darwin. This is no doubt true, and 
Mr. Wallace has done such good work in further illustration 
of the theory that he can well afford to rest content with the 
second place in the first announcement of it. 

"The coincidence, however, between Mr. Wallace s con- 



68 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

elusions and those of Mr. Darwin was very remarkable. But, 
after all, coincidences of this sort have not been uncommon 
in the history of scientific inquiry. Nor is it at all surprising 
that they should occur now and then, when we remember 
that a great and pregnant discovery must always be concerned 
with some question which many of the foremost minds in 
the world are busy thinking about. It was so with the dis 
covery of the differential calculus, and again with the discov 
ery of the planet Neptune. It was so with the interpretation 
of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and with the establishment of 
the undulatory theory of light. It was so, to a considerable 
extent, with the introduction of the new chemistry, with the 
discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, and the whole 
doctrine of the correlation of forces. It was so with the in 
vention of the electric telegraph and with the discovery of 
spectrum analysis. And it is not at all strange that it should 
have been so with the doctrine of the origin of species through 
natural selection." 

He thinks these " coincidences " were apt to hap 
pen because the matters from which they sprang 
were matters which many of the foremost minds in 
the world were busy thinking about. But perhaps 
one man in each case did the telegraphing to the 
others. The aberrations which gave Leverrier the 
idea that there must be a planet of such and such 
mass and such and such an orbit hidden from sight 
out yonder in the remote abysses of space were not 
new; they had been noticed by astronomers for gen 
erations. Then why should it happen to occur to 
three people, widely separated Leverrier, Mrs. 
Somerville, and Adams to suddenly go to worrying 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 69 

about those aberrations all at the same time, and 
set themselves to work to find out what caused them, 
and to measure and weigh an invisible planet, and 
calculate its orbit, and hunt it down and catch it ? 
a strange project which nobody but they had ever 
thought of before. If one astronomer had invented 
that odd and happy project fifty years before, don t 
you think he would have telegraphed it to several 
others without knowing it ? 

But now I come to a puzzler. How is it that in 
animate objects are able to affect the mind ? They 
seem to do that. However, I wish to throw in a 
parenthesis first just a reference to a thing every 
body is familiar with the experience of receiving a 
clear and particular answer to your telegram before 
your telegram has reached the sender of the answer. 
That is a case where your telegram has gone straight 
from your brain to the man it was meant for, far out 
stripping the wire s slow electricity, and it is an 
exercise of mental telegraphy which is as common 
as dining. To return to the influence of inanimate 
things. In the cases of non-professional clairvoyance 
examined by the Psychical Society the clairvoyant 
has usually been blindfolded, then some object 
which has been touched or worn by a person is 
placed in his hand; the clairvoyant immediately de 
scribes that .person, and goes on and gives a- history 



70 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

of some event with which the text object has been 
connected. If the inanimate object is able to affect 
and inform the clairvoyant s mind, maybe it can do 
the same when it is working in the interest of men 
tal telegraphy. Once a lady in the West wrote me 
that her son was coming to New York to remain 
three weeks, and would pay me a visit if invited, 
and she gave me his address. I mislaid the letter, 
and forgot all about the matter till the three weeks 
were about up. Then a sudden and fiery irrupton 
of remorse burst up in my brain that illuminated all 
the region round about, and I sat down at once and 
wrote to the lady and asked for that lost address. 
But, upon reflection, I judged that the stirring up 
of my recollection had not been an accident, so I 
added a postscript to say, never mind, I should get 
a letter from her son before night. And I did get 
it; for the letter was already in the town, although 
not delivered yet. It had influenced me somehow. 
I have had so many experiences of this sort a dozen 
of them at least that I am nearly persuaded that 
inanimate objects do not confine their activities to 
helping the clairvoyant, but do every now and then 
give the mental telegraphist a lift. 

The case of mental telegraphy which I am com 
ing to now comes under I don t exactly know what 
head. I clipped it from one of our local papers six 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY, J\ 

or eight years ago. I know the details to be right 
and true, for the story was told to me in the same 
form by one of the two persons concerned (a clergy 
man of Hartford) at the time that the curious thing 
happened: 

"A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE. Strange coincidences 
make the most interesting of stories and most curious of 
studies. Nobody can quite say how they come about, but 
everybody appreciates the fact when they do come, and it is 
seldom that any more complete and curious coincidence is 
recorded of minor importance than the following, which is 
absolutely true, and occurred in this city : 

" At the time of the building of one of the finest residences 
of Hartford, which is still a very new house, a local firm sup 
plied the wall-paper for certain rooms, contracting both to 
furnish and to put on the paper. It happened that they did 
not calculate the size of one room exactly right, and the 
paper of the design selected for it fell short just half a roll. 
They asked for delay enough to send on to the manufacturers 
for what was needed, and were told that there was no especial 
hurry. It happened that the manufacturers had none on 
hand, and had destroyed the blocks from which it was printed. 
They wrote that they had a full list of the dealers to whom 
they had sold that paper, and that they would write to each 
of these, and get from some of them a roll. It might involve 
a delay of a couple of weeks, but they would surely get it. 

" In the course of time came a letter saying that, to their 
great surprise, they could not find a single roll. Such a thing 
was very unusual, but in this case it had so happened. Ac 
cordingly the local firm asked for further time, saying they 
would write to their own customers who had bought of that 
pattern, and would get the piece from them. But, to their 
surprise, this effort also failed. A long time had now 
elapsed, and there was no use of delaying any longer. They 



72 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

had contracted to paper the room, and their only course was 
to take off that which was insufficient and put on some other 
of which there was enough to go around. Accordingly at 
length a man was sent out to remove the paper. He got his 
apparatus ready, and was about to begin work, under the di 
rection of the owner of the building, when the latter was for 
the moment called away. The house was large and very in 
teresting, and so many people had rambled about it that 
finally admission had been refused by a sign at the door. On 
the occasion, however, when a gentleman had knocked and 
asked for leave to look about, the owner, being on the prem 
ises, had been sent for to reply to the request in person. 
That was the call that for the moment delayed the final prep 
arations. The gentleman went to the door and admitted 
the stranger, saying he would show him about the house, but 
first must return for a moment to that room to finish his 
directions there, and he told the curious story about the paper 
as they went on. They entered the room together, and the 
first thing the stranger, who lived fifty miles away, said on 
looking about was, Why, I have that very paper on a room 
in my house, and I have an extra roll of it laid away, which 
is at your service. In a few days the wall was papered ac 
cording to the original contract. Had not the owner been 
at the house, the stranger would not have been admitted; 
had he called a day later, it would have been too late; had 
not the facts been almost accidentally told to him, he would 
probably have said nothing of the paper, and so on. The 
exact fitting of all the circumstances is something very 
remarkable, and makes one of those stories that seem hardly 
accidental in their nature." 

Something that happened the other day brought 
my hoary MS. to mind, and that is how I came to 
dig it out from its dusty pigeonhole grave for pub 
lication. The thing that happenecl was a question. 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 73 

A lady asked it : " Have you ever had a vision 
when awake?" I was about to answer promptly, 
when the last two words of the question began to 
grow and spread and swell, and presently they 
attained to vast dimensions. She did not know that 
they were important; and I did not at first, but I 
soon saw that they were putting me on the track of 
the solution of a mystery which had perplexed me 
a good deal. You will see what I mean when I get 
down to it. Ever since the English Society for 
Psychical Research began its searching investiga 
tions of ghost stories, haunted houses, and appari 
tions of the living and the dead, I have read their 
pamphlets with avidity as fast as they arrived. Now 
one of their commonest inquiries of a dreamer or a 
vision-seer is, "Are you sure you were awake at 
the time ?" If the man can t say he is sure he was 
awake, a doubt falls upon his tale right there. But 
if he is positive he was awake, and offers reasonable 
evidence to substantiate it, the fact counts largely 
for the credibility of his story. It does with the 
society, and it did with me until that lady asked me 
the above question the other day. 

The question set me to considering, and brought 
me to the conclusion that you can be asleep at 
least wholly unconscious for a time, and not sus 
pect that it has happened, and not have any way to 



74 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

prove that it has happened. A memorable case was 
in my mind. About a year ago I was standing on 
the porch one day, when I saw a man coming up the 
walk. He was a stranger, and I hoped he would 
ring and carry his business into the house without 
stopping to argue with me; he would have to pass 
the front door to get to me, and I hoped he would n t 
take the trouble ; to help, I tried to look like a 
stranger myself it often works. I was looking 
straight at that man; he had got to within ten feet 
of the door and within twenty-five feet of me and 
suddenly he disappeared. It was as astounding as 
if a church should vanish from before your face and 
leave nothing behind it but a vacant lot. I was un 
speakably delighted. I had seen an apparition at 
last, with my own eyes, in broad daylight. I made 
up my mind to write an account of it to the society. 
I ran to where the spectre had been, to make sure 
he was playing fair, then I ran to the other end of 
the porch, scanning the open grounds as I went. 
No, everything was perfect ; he could n t have 
escaped without my seeing him; he was an appari 
tion, without the slightest doubt, and I would write 
him up before he was cold. I ran, hot with excite 
ment, and let myself in with a latch-key. When I 
stepped into the hall my lungs collapsed and my 
heart stood still. For there sat that same apparition 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 75 

in a chair, all alone, and as quiet and reposeful as if 
he had come to stay a year ! The shock kept me 
dumb for a moment or two, then I said, "Did you 
come in at that door ?" 
" Yes." 

" Did you open it, or did you ring ?" 
" I rang, and the colored man opened it." 
I said to myself: " This is astonishing. It takes 
George all of two minutes to answer the door-bell 
when he is in a hurry, and I have never seen him in 
a hurry. How did this man stand two minutes at 
that door, within five steps of me, and I did not see 
him ? " 

I should have gone to my grave puzzling over 
that riddle but for that lady s chance question last 
week : " Have you ever had a vision when awake ? " 
It stands explained now. During at least sixty sec 
onds that day I was asleep, or at least totally un 
conscious, without suspecting it. In that interval 
the man came to my immediate vicinity, rang, stood 
there and waited, then entered and closed the door, 
and I did not see him and did not hear the door slam. 
If he had slipped around the house in that inter 
val and gone into the cellar he had time enough 
I should have written him up for the society, and 
magnified him, and gloated over him, and hurrahed 
about him, and thirty yoke of oxen could not have 



76 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY. 

pulled the belief out of me that I was of the favored 
ones of the earth, and had seen a vision while wide 
awake. 

Now how are you to tell when you are awake ? 
What are you to go by ? People bite their fingers 
to find out. Why, you can do that in a dream. 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

BY courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession 
of a singular book eight or ten years ago. It is 
likely that mine is now the only copy in existence. 
Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows : 

" The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant. 
By G. Ragsdale McClintock,* author of k An Ad 
dress, etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill, South Car 
olina, and member of the Yale Law School. New 
Haven: published by T. H. Pease, 83 Chapel Street, 
1845." 

No one can take up this book, and lay it down 
a^ain unread. Whoever reads one line of it is 

o 

caught, is chained; he has become the contented 
slave of its fascinations; and he will read and read, 
devour and devour, and will not let it go out of his 
hand till it is finished to the last line, though the 
house be on fire over his head. And after a first 
reading, he will not throw it aside, but will keep it 

*The name here given is a substitute for the one actually at 
tached to the pamphlet. 

77 



78 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

by him, with his Shakspere and his Homer, and will 
take it up many and many a time, when the world 
is dark, and his spirits are low, and be straightway 
cheered and refreshed. Yet this work has been al 
lowed to lie wholly neglected, unmentioned, and 
apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century. 

The reader must not imagine that he is to find in 
it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity 
of construction, excellence of form, purity of style, 
perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of 
statement, humanly possible situations, humanly 
possible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence 
of events or philosophy, or logic, or sense. No; 
the rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in 
the total and miraculous absence from it of all these 
qualities a charm which is completed and perfect 
ed by the evident fact that the author, whose naive 
innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and 
almost our worship, does not know that they are ab 
sent, does not even suspect that they are absent. 
When read by the light of these helps to an under 
standing of the situation, the book is delicious 
profoundly and satisfyingly delicious. 

I call it a book because the author calls it a book, 
I call it a work because he calls it a work; but in 
truth it is merely a duodecimo pamphlet of thirty- 
one pages. It was written for fame and money as 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 79 

the author very frankly yes, and very hopefully, 
too, poor fellow says in his preface. The money 
never came; no penny of it ever came; and how 
long, how pathetically long, the fame has been de 
ferred forty-seven years ! He was young then, it 
would have been so much to him then; but will he 
care for it now ? 

As time is measured in America, McClintock s 
epoch is antiquity. In his long-vanished day the 
Southern author had a passion for " eloquence" ; it 
was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or 
perish. And he recognized only one kind of elo 
quence, the lurid, the tempestuous, the volcanic. 
He liked words; big words, fine words, grand words, 
rumbling, thundering, reverberating words with 
sense attaching if it could begot in without marring 
the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to stand 
up before a dazed world, and pour forth flame, and 
smoke, and lava, and pumice-stone, into the skies, 
and work his subterranean thunders, and shake 
himself with earthquakes, and stench himself with 
sulphur fumes. If he consumed his own fields and 
vineyards, that was a pity, yes; but he would have 
his eruption at any cost. Mr. McClintock s elo 
quence and he is always eloquent, his crater is al 
ways spouting is of the pattern common to his 
day, but he depart-^ Wii ^e custom of the time in 



8O A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

one respect: his brethren allowed sense to intrude 
when it did not mar the sound, but he does not al 
low it to intrude at all. For example, consider this 
figure, which he uses in the village " Address " re 
ferred to with such candid complacency in the title- 
page above quoted "like the topmost topaz of an 
ancient tower." Please read it again; contemplate 
it; measure it; walk around it; climb up it; try to 
get at an approximate realization of the size of it. 
Is the fellow to that to be found in literature, an 
cient or modern, foreign or domestic, living or dead, 
drunk or sober ? One notices how fine and grand it 
sounds. We know that if it was loftily uttered, it 
got a noble burst of applause from the villagers; yet 
there is n t a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it. 

McClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, 
and came to Hartford on a visit that same year. I 
have talked with men who at that time talked with 
him, and felt of him, and knew he was real. One 
needs to remember that fact, and to keep fast hold 
of it; it is the only way to keep McClintock s book 
from undermining one s faith in- McClintock s ac 
tuality. 

As to the book. The first four pages are devoted 
to an inflamed eulogy of Woman, simply Woman 
in general, or perhaps as an Institution, wherein, 
among other compliments to her details, he pays a 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 3 I 

unique one to her voice. He says it " fills the breast 
with fond alarms, echoed by every rill." It sounds 
well enough, but it is not true. After the eulogy he 
takes up his real work, and the novel begins. It 
begins in the woods, near the village of Sunflower 
Hill. 

Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the 
fair Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick 
forest, to guide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations 
to conquer the enemy that would tarnish his name, and to 
win back the admiration of his long tried friend. 

fxl/V 

It seems a general remark, but it is not general; 
the hero mentioned is the to-be hero of the book; 
and in this abrupt fashion, and without name or de 
scription, he is shoveled into the tale. With as 
pirations to conquer the enemy that would tarnish 
his name " is merely a phrase flung in for the sake 
of the sound let it not mislead the reader. No one 
is trying to tarnish this person; no one has thought 
of it. The rest of the sentence is also merely a 
phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and of course 
has had no chance to try him, or win back his ad 
miration, or disturb him in any other way. 

The hero climbs up over (&lt; Sawney s Mountain," 
and down the other side, making for an old Indian 
"castle" which becomes "the red man s hut "in 
the next sentence; and when he gets there at last, 



82 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

he " surveys with wonder and astonishment" the in 
visible structure, " which time had buried in the 
dust; and thought to himself his happiness was not 
yet complete." One does n t know why it was n t, 
nor how near it came to being complete, nor what 
was still wanting to round it up and make it so. 
Maybe it was the Indian; but the book does not 
say. At this point we have an episode : 

Beside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about 
eighteen or twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite 
book, and who had a remarkably noble countenance eyes 
which betrayed more than a common mind. This of course 
made the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in 
whatever condition of life he might be placed. The traveler 
observed that he was a well built figure which showed strength 
and grace in every movement. He accordingly addressed 
him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of him 
the way to the village. After he had received the desired 
information, and was about taking his leave, the youth 
said, "Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician * 
the champion of a noble cause the modern Achilles, who 
gained so many victories in the Florida War ? " "I bear that 
name," said the Major, "and those titles, trusting at the 
same time, that the ministers of grace will carry me trium 
phantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if," con 
tinued the Major, "you sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, 
I should like to make you my confidant, and learn your ad 
dress." The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, 
mused for a moment, and began : " My name is Roswell. I 

* Further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the 
fiddle, and has a three-township fame. 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 83 

have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only give a 
faint outline of my future success in that honorable profes 
sion; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from 
lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever be 
ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and 
whatever this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall 
be called from its buried greatness." The Major grasped 
him by the hand, and exclaimed: " O! thou exalted spirit of 
inspiration thou flame of burning prosperity, may the Heav 
en directed blaze be the glare of thy soul, and battle down 
every rampart that seems to impede your progress! " 

There is a strange sort of originality about Mc- 
Clintock; he imitates other people s styles, but no 
body can imitate his, not even an idiot. Other 
people can be windy, but McClintock blows a gale; 
other people can blubber sentiment, but McClintock 
spews it; other people can mishandle metaphors, 
but only McClintock knows how to make a business 
of it. McClintock is always McClintock, he is al 
ways consistent, his style is always his own style. 
He does not make the mistake of being relevant on 
one page and irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant 
on all of them. He does not make the mistake of 
being lucid in one place and obscure in another; he 
is obscure all the time. He does not make the mis 
take of slipping in a name here and there that is out 
of character with his work; he always uses names 
that exactly and fantastically fit his lunatics. In 
the matter of undeviating consistency he stands 



84 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

alone in authorship. It is this that makes his style 
unique, and entitles it to a name of its own McClin- 
tockian. It is this that protects it from being mis 
taken for anybody else s. Uncredited quotations 
from other writers often leave a reader in doubt as 
to their authorship, but McClintock is safe from that 
accident; an uncredited quotation from him would 
always be recognizable. When a boy nineteen 
years old, who had just been admitted to the bar, 
says, " I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down 
from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man," we 
know who is speaking through that boy; we should 
recognize that note anywhere. There be myriads 
of instruments in this world s literary orchestra, and 
a multitudinous confusion of sounds that they make, 
wherein fiddles are drowned, and guitars smothered, 
and one sort of drum mistaken for another sort; but 
whensoever the brazen note of the McClintockian 
trombone breaks through that fog of music, that 
note is recognizable, and about it there can be no 
blur of doubt. 

The novel now arrives at the point where the 
Major goes home to see his father. When McClin 
tock wrote this interview, he probably believed it 
was pathetic. 

The road which led to the town, presented many attrac 
tions. Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 85 

and was now wending his way to the dreaming spot of his 
fondness. The south winds whistled through the woods, as 
the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent 
furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, 
that he quietly left behind the hospitality of a father s house, 
and gladly entered the world, with higher hopes than are 
often realized. But as he journeyed onward, he was mindful 
of the advice of his father, who had often looked sadly on 
the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived hope, moistened 
his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a dutiful son; yet 
fond of the amusements of life had been in distant lands 
had enjoyed the pleasure of the world, and had frequently 
returned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost destitute of 
many of the comforts of life. In this condition, he would 
frequently say to his father, " Have I offended you, that you 
look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with sting 
ing looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your 
voice? If I have trampled upon your veneration, or have 
spread a humid veil of darkness around your expectations, 
send me back into the world, where no heart beats for me 
where the foot of man has never yet trod ; but give me at 
least one kind word allow me to come into the presence 
sometimes of thy winter-worn locks." " Forbid it, Heaven, 
that I should be angry with thee," answered the father, " my 
son, and yet I send thee back to the children of the world 
to the cold charity of the combat, and to a land of victory. 
I read another destiny in thy countenance I learn thy in 
clinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul 
a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear Elfonzo, it 
will find thee thou canst not escape that lighted torch, 
which shall blot out from the remembrance of men a long 
train of prophecies which they have foretold against thee. I 
once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path 
of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet Elfonzo, 
return to thy worldly occupation take again in thy hand, 
that chord of sweet sounds struggle with the civilized world, 



86 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground 
let the night-owl send forth its screams from the stubborn 
oak let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing to 
gether; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hid 
ing-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful 
desires must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacri 
fice them to a Higher will." 

Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo 
was immediately urged by the recollection of his father s 
family to keep moving. 

McClintock has a fine gift in the matter of sur 
prises; but as a rule they are not pleasant ones, 
they jar upon the feelings. His closing sentence in 
the last quotation is of that sort. It brings one 
down out of the tinted clouds in too sudden and 
collapsed a fashion. It incenses one against the 
author for a moment. It makes the reader want to 
take him by his winter-worn locks, and trample on 
his veneration, and deliver him over to the cold 
charity of combat, and blot him out with his own 
lighted torch. But the feeling does not last. The 
master takes again in his hand that concord of 
sweet sounds of his, and one is reconciled, pac 
ified. 

His steps became quicker and quicker he hastened 
through the piny woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy 
he very soon reached the little village of repose, in whose 
bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His close attention to 
every important object his modest questions about whatever 
was new to him his reverence for wise old age, and his ar- 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 87 

dent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him 
into respectable notice. 

One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets tow 
ard the Academy, which stood upon a small eminence, sur 
rounded by native growth some venerable in its appearance, 
others young and prosperous all seemed inviting, and seemed 
to be the very place for learning as well as for genius to 
spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered 
its classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners. 

The artfulness of this man ! None knows so well 
as he how to pique the curiosity of the reader and 
how to disappoint it. He raises the hope, here, 
that he is going to tell all about how one enters a 
classic wall in the usual mode of Southern manners; 
but does he? No; he smiles in his sleeve, and 
turns aside to other matters. 

The principal of the Institution begged him to be seated, 
and listen to the recitations that were going on. He accord 
ingly obeyed the request, and seemed to be much pleased. 
After the school was dismissed, and the young hearts re 
gained their freedom, with the songs of the evening, laugh 
ing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while 
others tittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed 
the teacher in a tone that indicated a resolution with an 
undaunted mind. He said he had determined to become a 
student, if he could meet with his approbation, " Sir," said 
he, "I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled 
among the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met 
with friends, and combated with foes; but none of these 
gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be my destiny. I 
see the learned world have an influence with the voice of the 
people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest kingdoms 



88 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

of the earth, refer their differences to this class of persons. 
This the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and now 
if you will receive me as I am, with these deficiencies with 
all my misguided opinions, I will give you my honor, sir, 
that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those who have 
placed you in this honorable station." The instructor, who 
had met with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a 
stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an 
unfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and 
said: " Be of good cheer look forward, sir, to the high des 
tination you may attain. Remember, the more elevated the 
mark at which you aim, the more sure, the more glorious, 
the more magnificent the prize." From wonder to wonder, 
his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange 
nature bloomed before him giant streams promised him 
success gardens of hidden treasures opened to his view. 
All this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a new witchery 
from his glowing fancy. 

It seems to me that this situation is new in ro 
mance. I feel sure it has not been attempted be 
fore. Military celebrities have been disguised and 
set at lowly occupations for dramatic effect, but I 
think McClintock is the first to send one of them to 
school. Thus, in this book, you pass from wonder 
to wonder, through gardens of hidden treasure, 
where giant streams bloom before you, and behind 
you, and all around, and you feel as happy, and 
groggy, and satisfied, with your quart of mixed 
metaphor aboard, as you would if it had been mixed 
in a sample-room, and delivered from a jug. 

Now we come upon some more McClintockian 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 89 

surprises a sweetheart who is sprung upon us with 
out any preparation, along with a name for her 
which is even a little more of a surprise than she 
herself is. 

In 1842, he entered the class, and made rapid progress in 
the English and Latin departments. Indeed, he continued 
advancing with such rapidity that he was like to become the 
first in his class, and made such unexpected progress, and 
was so studious, that he had almost forgotten the pictured 
saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and 
cypress, had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of 
Heaven upon the heads of those who had so often poured 
forth the tender emotions of their souls under its boughs. 
He was aware of the pleasure that he had seen there. So 
one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he con 
cluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little 
did he think of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, 
though no doubt, he wished it might be so. He continued 
sauntering by the road-side, meditating on the past. The 
nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became. 
At that moment, a tall female figure flitted across his path, 
with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed 
uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth 
already appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading, 
while her ringlets of hair, dangled unconsciously around her 
snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to complete her beauty. 
The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the 
charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her asso 
ciates. In Ambulinia s bosom dwelt a noble soul one that 
never faded one that never was conquered. 

Ambulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. 
The full name is Ambulinia Valeer. Marriage will 



9 o 



A CUKE FOR THE BLUES. 



presently round it out and perfect it. Then it will 
be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. It takes the 
chromo. 

Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, 
on whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she 
felt herself more closely bound, because he sought the hand 
of no other. Elfonzo was roused from his apparent revery. 
His books no longer were his inseparable companions his 
thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage him to the field 
of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambu 
linia, but his speech appeared not in words. No, his effort 
was a stream of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of ad 
miration, and carried his senses away captive. Ambulinia 
had disappeared, to make him more mindful of his duty. As 
she walked speedily away through the piny woods, she calmly 
echoed: "O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from thy sun 
beams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path perhaps thy 
way leads through darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell 
happiness." 

To McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words 
meant something, no doubt, or seemed to mean 
something; but it is useless for us to try to divine 
what it was. Ambulinia comes we don t know 
whence nor why; she mysteriously intimates we 
don t know what; and then she goes echoing away 
we don t know whither; and down comes the cur 
tain. McClintock s art is subtle; McClintock s art 
is deep. 

Not many days afterwards, as surrounded by fragrant flow 
ers, she sat one evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 9! 

that whispered notes of melody along the distant groves, the 
little birds perched on every side, as if to watch the move 
ments of their new visitor. The bells were tolling, when El- 
fonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers, holding 
in his hand his favorite instrument of music his eye contin 
ually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to per 
ceive him, as she played carelessly with the songsters that 
hopped from branch to branch. Nothing could be more 
striking than the difference between the two. Nature seem 
ed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and the 
stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling 
spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo, such a feeling as can only 
be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers, and by 
those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart. 
He was a few years older than Ambulina: she had turned a 
little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the 
Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one 
of the natives. But little intimacy had existed between them 
until the year forty-one because the youth felt that the 
character of such a lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any 
other feeling than that of quiet reverence. But as lovers will 
not always be insulted, at all times and under all circum 
stances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old age, 
which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, 
and treat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a 
graceful mien, he continued to use diligence and persever 
ance. All this lighted a spark in his heart that changed his 
whole character, and like the unyielding Deity that follows 
the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves for the 
first time to shake off his embarrassment, and return where 
he had before only worshiped. 

At last we begin to get the major s measure. We 
are able to put this and that casual fact together, 
and build the man up before our eyes, and look at 



92 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

him. And after we have got him built, we find him 
worth the trouble. By the above comparison be 
tween his age and Ambulinia s, we guess the war 
worn veteran to be twenty-two; and the other facts 
stand thus: he had grownup in the Cherokee coun 
try with the same equal proportions as one of the 
natives how flowing and graceful the language, 
and yet how tantalizing as to meaning ! he had 
been turned adrift by his father, to whom he had 
been "somewhat of a dutiful son"; he wandered in 
distant lands; came back frequently " to the scenes 
of his boyhood, almost destitute of many of the com 
forts of life," in order to get into the presence of his 
father s winter-worn locks, and spread a humid veil 
of darkness around his expectations; but he was al 
ways promptly sent back to the cold charity of the 
combat again; he learned to play the fiddle, and 
made a name for himself in that line; he had dwelt 
among the wild tribes; he had philosophized about 
the despoilers of the kingdoms of the earth, and 
found out the cunning creature that they refer 
their differences to the learned for settlement; he 
had achieved a vast fame as a military chieftain, the 
Achilles of the Florida campaigns, and then had got 
him a spelling-book and started to school; he had 
fallen in love with Ambulinia Valeer while she was 
teething, but had kept it to himself awhile, out of 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 93 

the reverential awe which he felt for the child; but 
now at last, like the unyielding deity who follows 
the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves 
to shake off his embarrassment, and to return where 
before he had only worshiped. The major, indeed, 
has made up his mind to rise up and shake his fac 
ulties together, and to see if he can t do that thing 
himself. This is not clear. But no matter about 
that: there stands the hero, compact and visible; 
and he is no mean structure, considering that his 
creator had never created anything before, and 
hadn t anything but rags and wind to build with 
this time. It seems to me that no one can con 
template this odd creature, this quaint and curious 
blatherskite, without admiring McClintock, or, at 
any rate, loving him and feeling grateful to him; for 
McClintock made him, he gave him to us; without 
McClintock we could not have had him, and would 
now be poor. 

But we must come to the feast again. Here is a 
courtship scene, down there in the romantic glades 
among the raccoons, alligators, and things, that has 
merit, peculiar literary merit. See how Achilles 
woos. Dwell upon the second sentence (particu 
larly the close of it), and the beginning of the third. 
Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is in 
truded upon us unheralded and unexplained. That 



94 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

is McClintock s way; it is his habit; it is a part of 
his genius; he cannot help it; he never interrupts 
the rush of his narrative to make introductions: 

It could not escape Ambulinia s penetrating eye, that he 
sought an interview with her, which she as anxiously avoid 
ed, and assumed a more distant calmness than before, seem 
ingly to destroy all hope. After many efforts and struggles 
with his own person, with timid steps the Major approached 
the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in 
a field of battle. " Lady Ambulinia," said he, trembling, " I 
have long desired a moment like this. I dare not let it es 
cape. I fear the consequences; yet I hope your indulgence 
will at least hear my petition. Can you not anticipate what 
I would say, and what I am about to express? Will you 
not, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter, re 
lease me from thy winding chains or cure me " " Say no 
more, Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia, with a serious look, 
raising her hand as if she intended to swear eternal hatred 
against the whole world, " another lady in my place would 
have perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I 
know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the 
vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling, as 
well as ashamed to be guilty of any thing that would lead 
you to think all is not gold that glitters : so be not rash in 
your resolution. It is better to repent now, than to do it in 
a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you would say. I 
know you have a costly gift for me the noblest that man 
can make your heart ! you should not offer it to one so un 
worthy. Heaven, you know, has allowed my father s house 
to be made a house of solitude, a home of silent obedience, 
which my parents say is more to be admired than big names 
and high sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this, let me 
speak the emotions of an honest heart allow me to say in 
the fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 95 

bird may stretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never 
reach; and flowers of the field appear to ascend in the 
same direction, because they cannot do otherwise : but man 
confides his complaints to the saints in whom he believes; 
for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From 
your confession and indicative looks, I must be that person : 
if so, deceive not yourself." 

Elfonzo replied, " Pardon me, my dear madam, for my 
frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days every 
thing grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambu- 
linia: while precipices on every hand surrounded me, your 
guardian angel stood and beckoned me away from the deep 
abyss. In every trial in every misfortune, I have met with 
your helping hand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish 
thy love, till a voice impaired with age encouraged the cause, 
and declared they who acquired thy favor, should win a vic 
tory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I felt my own un- 
worthiness. I began to know jealousy, a strong guest indeed, 
in my bosom, yet I could see if I gained your admiration, 
Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had the in 
fluence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased relative, 
which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular tran 
quillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an 
interest in your prayers to ask you to animate my drooping 
spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for, if you but 
speak, I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like 
Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, 
and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed; 
yet I am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weap 
ons, which will enable me to complete my long tried in 
tention." " Return to yourself, Elfonzo," said Ambulinia, 
pleasantly, " a dream of vision has disturbed your intellect 
you are above the atmosphere, dwelling in the celestial 
regions, nothing is there that urges or hinders, nothing that 
brings discord into our present litigation. I entreat you to 
condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all. When 



96 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men, fight 
ing with giants and dragons, they represent under this image, 
our struggles with the delusions of our passions. You have 
exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies, you have called 
me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination, an angel in 
human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue 
to be as you have supposed, and be assured that she will con 
sider a share in your esteem, as her highest treasure. Think 
not that I would allure you from the path in which your con 
science leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of 
others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy 
of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between 
us. Go, seek a nobler theme ! we will seek it in the stream 
of time, as the sun set in the Tigris." As she spake these 
words, she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying at the same 
time " peace and prosperity attend you my hero: be up and 
doing." Closing her remarks with this expression, she 
walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and amazed. 
He ventured not to follow, or detain her. Here he stood 
alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he 
stood. 

Yes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt 
about that. Nearly half of this delirious story has 
now been delivered to the reader. It seems a pity 
to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis. Pity ! 
it is more than a pity, it is a crime; for, to synopsize 
McClintock is to reduce a sky-flushing conflagration 
to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric splendor to 
ragged poverty. McClintock never wrote a line 
that was not precious; he never wrote one that 
could be spared; he never framed one from which a 
word could be removed without damage. Every 



A CURE FOR THE 13 LUES. gj 

sentence that this master has produced may be 
likened to a perfect set of teeth, white, uniform, 
beautiful. If you pull one, the charm is gone. 

Still, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to 
keep it up; for lack of space requires us to synop- 
size. 

We left Elfonzo standing there, amazed. At 
what, we do not know. Not at the girl s speech. 
No; we ourselves should have been amazed at it, 
of course, for none of us has ever heard anything 
resembling it: but Elfonzo was used to speeches 
made up of noise and vacancy, and could listen to 
them with undaunted mind like the " topmost topaz 
of an ancient tower"; he was used to making them 
himself; he but let it go, it cannot be guessed 
out; we shall never know what it was that aston 
ished him. He stood there awhile; then he said, 
"Alas! am I now Grief s disappointed son at last." 
He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to 
find out what he probably meant by that, because, 
for one reason, "a mixture of ambition and great 
ness of soul moved upon his young heart," and 
started him for the village. He resumed his bench 
in school, "and reasonably progressed in his edu 
cation." His heart was heavy, but he went into 
society, and sought surcease of sorrow in its light 
distractions. He made himself popular with his 



9 8 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

violin, " which seemed to have a thousand chords 
more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo, and 
more enchanting than the ghost of the Hills." 
This is obscure, but let it go. 

During this interval Leos did some unencouraged 
courting, but at last, " choked by his undertaking," 
he desisted. 

Presently "Elfonzo again wends his way to the 
stately walls and new built village." He goes to 
the house of his beloved; she opens the door her 
self. To my surprise for Ambulinia s heart had 
still seemed free at the time of their last interview 
love beamed from the girl s eyes. One sees that 
Elfonzo was surprised, too; for when he caught 
that light, " a halloo of smothered shouts ran through 
every vein." A neat figure a very neat figure, in 
deed ! Then he kissed her. " The scene was over 
whelming." They went into the parlor. The girl 
said it was safe, for her parents were abed, and 
would never know. Then we have this fine picture 
flung upon the canvas with hardly an effort, as 
you will notice. 

Advancing toward him she gave a bright display of her 
rosy neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks breathed 
divine fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while 
she stood like a goddess confessed before him. 

There is nothing of interest in the couple s inter- 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 99 

view. Now at this point the girl invites Elfonzo to 
a village show, where jealousy is the motive of the 
play, for she wants -to teach him a wholesome les 
son, if he is a jealous person. But this is a sham, 
and pretty shallow. McClintock merely wants a 
pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene 
or two in "Othello." 

The lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of 
the fiddlers. He and Ambulinia must not be seen 
together, lest trouble follow with the girl s malig 
nant father; we are made to understand that clearly. 
So the two sit together in the orchestra, in the 
midst of the musicians. This does not seem to be 
good art. In the first place, the girl would be in 
the way, for orchestras are always packed closely 
together, and there is no room to spare for people s 
girls; in the next place, one cannot conceal a girl 
in an orchestra without everybody taking notice of 
it. There can be no doubtr^f seems to me, that 
this is bad art. 

Leos is present. Of course one of the first things 
that catches his eye is the maddening spectacle of 
Ambulinia "leaning upon Elfonzo s chair." This 
poor girl does not seem to understand even the 
rudiments of concealment. But she is "in her 
seventeenth," as the author phrases it, and that is 
her justification. 



100 A CURE PO& fttE LUS. 

Leos meditates, constructs a plan with personal 
violence as a basis, of course. It was their way, 
down there. It is a good plain plan, without any 
imagination in it. He will go out and stand at the 
front door, and when these two come out he will 
" arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent 
Elfonzo," and thus make for himself a " more pros 
perous field of immortality than ever was decreed 
by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist 
imagined." But dear me, while he is waiting there 
the couple climb out at the back window and scurry 
home ! This is romantic enough, but there is a 
lack of dignity in the situation. 

At this point McClintock puts in the whole of 
his curious play which we skip. 

Some correspondence follows now. The bitter 
father and the distressed lovers write the letters. 
Elopements are attempted. They are are idioti 
cally planned, and they fail. Then we have several 
pages of romantic powwow and confusion signifying 
nothing. Another elopement is planned; it is to 
take place on Sunday, when everybody is at church. 
But the "hero" cannot keep the secret; he tells 
everybody. Another author would have found 
another instrument when he decided to defeat this 
elopement; but that is not McClintock s way. He 
uses the person that is nearest at hand. 



A CURE FOR THE %L,UES\ " : 



The evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her 
flight, takes refuge in a neighbor s house. Her fa 
ther drags her home. The villagers gather, at 
tracted by the racket. 

Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on 
to see what was going to become of Ambulinia, while he, 
with downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he saw them 
enter the abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the 
sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary apartment, 
when she exclaimed, " Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where 
art thou, with all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou 
to my relief. Ride on the wings of the wind! Turn thy 
force loose like a tempest, and roll on thy army like a whirl 
wind, over this mountain of trouble and confusion. Oh, 
friends! if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon the 
green hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty 
of nothing but innocent love." Elfonzo called out with a 
loud voice, " my God, can I stand this! arouse up, I beseech 
you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my brave boys," 
said he, "are you ready to go forth to your duty?" They 
stood around him. " Who," said he, "will call us to arms? 
Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who 
will meet the foe! Who will go forth with me in this ocean 
of grievous temptation ? If there is one who desires to go, 
let him come and shake hands upon the altar of devotion, 
and swear that he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause 
like this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy." "Mine 
be the deed," said a young lawyer, "and mine alone; Venus 
alone shall quit her station before I will forsake one jot or 
tittle of my promise to you; what is death to me ? what is all 
this warlike army, if it is not to win a victory ? I love the 
sleep of the lover and the mighty: nor would I give it over 
till the blood of my enemies should wreak with that of my 
own. But God forbid that our fame should soar on the 



I Of? A CU#% FQK THE B LUES. 

blood of the slumberer. " Mr. Valeer stands at his door with 
the frown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous 
weapon* ready to strike the first man who should enter his 
door. " Who will arise and go forward through blood and 
carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?" said Elfonzo. 
"All," exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, 
with their implements of battle. Others, of a more timid 
nature, stood among the distant hills to see the result of the 
contest. 

It will hardly be believed that after all this thun 
der and lightning not a drop of rain fell; but such 
is the fact. Elfonzo and his gang stood up and 
blackguarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all night, get 
ting their outlay back with interest ; then in the 
early morning the army and its general retired from 
the field, leaving the victory with their solitary ad 
versary and his crowbar. This is the first time this 
has happened in romantic literature. The invention 
is original. Everything in this book is original; 
there is nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Al 
ways, in other romances, when you find the author 
leading up to a climax, you know what is going to 
happen. But in this book it is different; the thing 
which seems, inevitable and unavoidable never hap 
pens; it is circumvented by the art of the author 
every time. 

Another elopement was attempted. It failed. 

* It is a crowbar. 



A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 1 03 

We have now arrived at the end. But it is not 
exciting. McClintock thinks it is; but it is n t. 
One day Elfonzo sent Ambulinia another note a 
note proposing elopement No. 16. This time the 
plan is admirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious, 
imaginative, deep oh, everything, and perfectly 
easy. One wonders why it was never thought of 
before. This is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave 
the breakfast-table, ostensibly to attend to the 
placing of those flowers, which ought to have been 
done a week ago," artificial ones, of course; the 
others would n t keep so long, and then, instead of 
fixing the flowers, she is to walk out to the grove, 
and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this plan 
overstrained the author, that is plain, for he straight 
way shows failing powers. The details of the plan 
are not many or elaborate. The author shall state 
them himself this good soul, whose intentions are 
always better than his English: 

You walk carelessly towards the academy grove, where you 
will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear 
you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with the first 
connubial rights. 

Last scene of all, which the author, now much 
enfeebled, tries to smarten up and make acceptable 
to his spectacular heart by introducing some new 
properties, silver bow, golden harp, olive branch, 



IO4 A CURE FOR THE BLUES. 

things that can all come good in an elopement, 
no doubt, yet are not to be compared to an umbrella 
for real handiness and reliability in an excursion of 
that kind. 

And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with 
glittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails 
her with his silver bow and his golden harp. They meet 
Ambulinia s countenance brightens Elfonzo leads up his 
winged steed. " Mount," said he, " ye true hearted, ye fear 
less soul the day is ours." She sprang upon the back of the 
young thunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, 
with one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she 
holds an olive-branch. "Lend thy aid, ye strong winds," 
they exclaimed, "ye moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of 
heaven, witness the enemy conquered." A Hold, "said Elfon 
zo, "thy dashing steed." " Ride on," said Ambulinia, "the 
voice of thunder is behind us. " And onward they went, with 
such rapidity, that they very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, 
where they dismounted, and were united with all the solem 
nities that usually attend such divine operations. 

There is but one Homer, there was but one 
Shakspere, there is but one McClintock and his 
immortal book is before you. Homer could not 
have written this book, Shakspere could not have 
written it, I could not have done it myself. There 
is nothing just like it in the literature of any country 
or of any epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental. 
It adds G. Ragsdale McClintock s to the sum of the 
republic s imperishable names. 



THE 

CURIOUS BOOK 

COMPLETE 



[The foregoing review of the great work of G. Ragsdale 
McClintock is liberally illuminated with sample extracts, but 
these cannot appease the appetite. Only the complete book, un 
abridged, can do that. Therefore it is here printed. M. T.] 



THE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE 
TRIUMPHANT. 

Sweet girl, thy smiles are full of charms, 

Thy voice is sweeter still, 
It fills the breast with fond alarms, 

Echoed by every rill. 

I BEGIN this little work with an eulogy upon woman, who 
has ever been distinguished for her perseverance, her 
constancy, and her devoted attention to those upon whom 
she has been pleased to place her affections. Many have been 
the themes upon which writers and public speakers have 
dwelt with intense and increasing interest. Among these 
delightful themes stands that of woman, the balm to all our 
sighs and disappointments, and the most preeminent of all 
other topics. Here the poet and orator have stood and gazed 
with wonder and with admiration; they have dwelt upon her 
innocence, the ornament of all her virtues. First viewing 
her external charms, such as are set forth in her form and 
her benevolent countenance, and then passing to the deep 
hidden springs of loveliness and disinterested devotion. In 
every clime, and in every age, she has been the pride of her 
nation. Her watchfulness is untiring; she who guarded the 
sepulchre was the first to approach it, and the last to depart 
from its awful yet sublime scene. Even here, in this highly- 
favored land, we look to her for the security of our institu 
tions, and for our future greatness as a nation. But, strange 
as it may appear, woman s charms and virtues are but slightly 
appreciated by thousands. Those who should raise the stand- 

106 



THE ENEMY CONQUERED. IO/ 

ard of female worth, and paint her value with her virtues, in 
living colors, upon the banners that are fanned by the zephyrs 
of heaven, and hand them down to posterity as emblematical 
of a rich inheritance, do not properly estimate them. 

Man is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and the 
emotions which bear that name; he does not understand, he 
will not comprehend; his intelligence has not expanded to 
that degree of glory which drinks in the vast revolution of 
humanity, its end, its mighty destination, and the causes 
which operated, and are still operating, to produce a more 
elevated station, and the objects which energize and enliven 
its consummation. This he is a stranger to; he is not aware 
that woman is the recipient of celestial love, and that man is 
dependent upon her to perfect his character; that without 
her, philosophically and truly speaking, the brightest of his 
intelligence is but the coldness of a winter moon, whose 
beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not its own, 
but borrowed from the great dispenser of effulgent beauty. 
We have no disposition in the world to flatter the fair sex, 
we would raise them above those dastardly principles which 
only exist in little souls, contracted hearts, and a distracted 
brain. Often does she unfold herself in all her fascinating 
loveliness, presenting the most captivating charms; yet we 
find man frequently treats such purity of purpose with indif 
ference. Why does he do it? Why does he baffle that which 
is inevitably the source of his better days? Is he so much 
of a stranger to those excellent qualities, as not to appreciate 
woman, as not to have respect to her dignity? Since her art 
and beauty first captivated man, she has been his delight and 
his comfort; she has shared alike in his misfortunes and in 
his prosperity. 

Whenever the billows of adversity and the tumultuous 
waves of trouble beat high, her smiles subdue their fury. 
Should the tear of sorrow and the mournful sigh of grief 
interrupt the peace of his mind, her voice removes them all, 
and she bends from her circle to encourage him onward. 



IO8 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

When darkness would obscure his mind, and a thick cloud 
of gloom would bewilder its operations, her intelligent eye 
darts a ray of streaming light into his heart. Mighty and 
charming is that disinterested devotion which she is ever 
ready to exercise toward man, not waiting till the last moment 
of his danger, but seeks to relieve him in his early afflictions. 
It gushes forth from the expansive fullness of a tender and 
devoted heart, where the noblest, the purest, and the most 
elevated and refined feelings are matured, and developed in 
those many kind offices which invariably make her character. 

In the room of sorrow and sickness, this unequaled char 
acteristic may always be seen, in the performance of the most 
charitable acts; nothing that she can do to promote the hap 
piness of him who she claims to be her protector, will be 
omitted; all is invigorated by the animating sunbeams which 
awaken the heart to songs of gayety. Leaving this point, to 
notice another prominent consideration, which is generally 
one of great moment and of vital importance. Invariably 
she is firm and steady in all her pursuits and aims. There is 
required a combination of forces and extreme opposition to 
drive her from her position; she takes her stand, not to be 
moved by the sound of Apollo s lyre, or the curved bow of 
pleasure. 

Firm and true to what she undertakes, and that which she 
requires by her own aggrandizement, and regards as being 
within the strict rules of propriety, she will remain stable and 
unflinching to the last. A more genuine principle is not to 
be found in the most determined, resolute heart of man. 
For this she deserves to be held in the highest commenda 
tion, for this she deserves the purest of all other blessings, 
and for this she deserves the most laudable reward of all 
others. It is a noble characteristic, and is worthy the imita 
tion of any age. And when we look at it in one particular 
aspect, it is still magnified, and grows brighter and brighter 
the more we reflect upon its eternal duration. What will she 
not do, when her word as well as her affections and love are 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 

pledged to her lover ? Every thing that is dear to her on 
earth, all the hospitalities of kind and loving parents, all the 
sincerity and loveliness of sisters, and the benevolent devo 
tion of brothers, who have surrounded her with every com 
fort; she will forsake them all, quit the harmony and sweet 
sound of the lute and the harp, and throw herself upon the 
affections of some devoted admirer, in whom she fondly 
hopes to find more than she has left behind, which is not 
often realized by many. Truth and virtue all combined! 
How deserving our admiration and love! Ah! cruel would 
it be in man, after she has thus manifested such an unshaken 
confidence in him, and said by her determination to abandon 
all the endearments and blandishments of home, to act a vil 
lainous part, and prove a traitor in the revolution of his mis 
sion, and then turn Hector over the innocent victim whom 
he swore to protect, in the presence of Heaven, recorded 
by the pen of an angel. 

Striking as this trait may unfold itself in her character, 
and as preeminent as it may stand among the fair display of 
her other qualities, yet there is another, which struggles into 
existence, and adds an additional lustre to what she already 
possesses. I mean that disposition in woman which enables 
her, in sorrow, in grief, and in distress, to bear all with en 
during patience. This she has done, and can and will do, 
amid the din of war and clash of arms. Scenes and occur 
rences which, to every appearance, are calculated to rend the 
heart with the profoundest emotions of trouble, do not fetter 
that exalted principle imbued in her very nature. It is true, 
her tender and feeling heart may often be moved, (as she is 
thus constituted,) but still she is not conquered, she has not 
given up to the harlequin of disappointments, her energies 
have not become clouded in the last moment of misfortune, 
but she is continually invigorated by the archetype of her 
affections. She may bury her face in her hands, and let the 
tear of anguish roll, she may promenade the delightful walks 
of some garden, decorated with all the flowers of nature, or 



I I O THE EN EM Y CONQ UERED ; 

she may steal out along some gently rippling stream, and 
there, as the silver waters uninterruptedly move forward, 
sheds her silent tears, they mingle with the waves, and take 
a last farewell of their agitated home, to seek a peaceful 
dwelling among the rolling floods; yet there is a voice rush 
ing from her breast, that proclaims victory along the whole 
line and battlement of her affections. That voice is the voice 
of patience and resignation ; that voice is one that bears every 
thing calmly and dispassionately; amid the most distressing 
scenes, when the fates are arrayed against her peace, and ap 
parently plotting for her destruction, still she is resigned. 

Woman s affections are deep, consequently her troubles 
may be made to sink deep. Although you may not be able 
to mark the traces of her grief and the furrowings of her an 
guish upon her winning countenance, yet be assured they are 
nevertheless preying upon her inward person, sapping the 
very foundation of that heart which alone was made for the 
weal and not the woe of man. The deep recesses of the soul 
are fields for their operation. But they are not destined sim 
ply to take the regions of the heart for their dominion, they 
are not satisfied merely with interrupting her better feelings; 
but after a while you may see the blooming cheek beginning 
to droop and fade, her intelligent eye no longer sparkles with 
the starry light of heaven, her vibrating pulse long since 
changed its regular motion, and her palpitating bosom beats 
once more for the mid-day of her glory. Anxiety and care 
ultimately throw her into the arms of the haggard and grim 
monster death. But, oh, how patient, under every pining 
influence! Let us view the matter in bolder colors; see her 
when the dearest object of her affections recklessly seeks 
every bacchanalian pleasure, contents himself with the last 
rubbish of creation. With what solicitude she awaits his re 
turn! Sleep fails to perform its office she weeps while the 
nocturnal shades of the night triumph in the stillness. Bend 
ing over some favorite book, whilst the author throws before 
her mind the most beautiful imagery, she startles at every 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. Ill 

sound. The midnight silence is broken by the solemn an 
nouncement of the return of another morning. He is still 
absent: she listens for that voice which has so often been 
greeted by the melodies of her own; but, alas! stern silence 
is all that she receives for her vigilance. 

Mark her unwearied watchfulness, as the night passes 
away. At last, brutalized by the accursed thing, he staggers 
along with rage, and shivering with cold, he makes his ap 
pearance. Not a murmur is heard from her lips. On the 
contrary, she meets him with a smile she caresses him with 
her tender arms, with all the gentleness and softness of her 
sex. Here then, is seen her disposition, beautifully arrayed. 
Woman, thou art more to be admired than the spicy gales of 

\rabia, and more sought for than the gold of Golconda. 

TVe believe that Woman should associate freely with man, 
and we believe that it is for the preservation of her rights. 
She should become acquainted with the metaphysical designs 
of those who condescend to sing the siren song of flattery. 
This, we think, should be according to the unwritten law of 
decorum, which is stamped upon every innocent heart. The 
precepts of prudery are often steeped in the guilt of contam 
ination, which blasts the expectations of better moments. 
Truth, and beautiful dreams loveliness, and delicacy of 
character, with cherished affections of the ideal woman 
gentle hopes and aspirations, are enough to uphold her in the 
storms of darkness, without the transferred colorings of a 
stained sufferer. How often have we seen it in our public 
prints, that woman occupies a false station in the world! and 
some have gone so far as to say it was an unnatural one. So 
long has she been regarded a weak creature, by the rabble 
and illiterate they have looked upon her as an insufficient 
actress on the great stage of human life a mere puppet, to 
fill up the drama of human existence a thoughtless inactive 
being, that she has too often come to the same conclusion 
herself, and has sometimes forgotten her high destination, in 
the meridian of her glory. We have but little sympathy or 



112 THE ENEMY CONQUERED , 

patience for those who treat her as a mere Rosy Melindi 
who are always fishing for pretty compliments who are sat 
isfied by the gossamer of Romance, and who can be allured 
by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in language, but 
poor and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by 
the intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, 
the hidden, and the artful no wonder she has sometimes 
folded her wings in despair, and forgotten her heavenly mis 
sion in the delirium of imagination; no wonder she searches 
out some wild desert, to find a peaceful home. But this can 
not always continue. A new era is moving gently onward, 
old things are rapidly passing away; old superstitutions, old 
prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their 
old associates and companions, and giving way to one whose 
wings are plumed with the light of heaven, and tinged by the 
dews of the morning. There is a remnant of blessedness that 
clings to her in spite of all evil influence there is enough of 
the Divine Master left, to accomplish the noblest work ever 
achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies; and that 
time is fast approaching, when the picture of the true woman 
will shine from its frame of glory, to captivate, to win back, 
to restore, and to call into being once more, the object of her 
mission. 

Star of the brave! thy glory shed, 

O er all the earth, thy army led 

Bold meteor of immortal birth! 

Why come from Heaven to dwell on Earth? 

Mighty and glorious are the days of youth; happy the mo 
ments of the lover, mingled with smiles and tears of his de 
voted, and long to be remembered are the achievements 
which he gains with a palpitating heart and a trembling hand. 
A bright and lovely dawn, the harbinger of a fair and pros 
perous day, had arisen over the beautiful little village of 
Gumming, which is surrounded by the most romantic scenery 
in the Cherokee country. Brightening clouds seemed to rise 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. I 13 

from the mist of the fair Chattahoochee, to spread their 
beauty over the thick forest, to guide the hero whose bosom 
beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that would tar 
nish his name, and to win back the admiration of his long 
tried friend. He endeavored to make his way through Saw 
ney s Mountain, where many meet to catch the gales that are 
continually blowing for the refreshment of the stranger and 
the traveler. Surrounded as he was, by hills on every side, 
naked rocks dared the efforts of his energies. Soon the sky 
became overcast, the sun buried itself in the clouds, and the 
fair day gave place to gloomy twilight, which lay heavily on 
the Indian Plains. He remembered an old Indian Castle, 
that once stood at the foot of the Mountain. He thought if 
he could make his way to this, he would rest contented for a 
short time. The mountain air breathed fragrance a rosy 
tinge rested on the glassy waters that murmured at its base. 
His resolution soon brought him to the remains of the red 
man s hut: he surveyed with wonder and astonishment, the 
decayed building, which time had buried in the dust, and 
thought to himself, his happiness was not yet complete. Be 
side the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen 
or twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite book, 
and who had a remarkably noble countenance eyes which 
betrayed more than a common mind. This of course made 
the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in what 
ever condition of life he might be placed. The traveler ob 
served that he was a well built figure which showed strength 
and grace in every movement. He accordingly addressed 
him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of him the 
way to the village. After he had received the desired infor 
mation, and was about taking his leave, the youth said, 
" Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician the cham 
pion of a noble cause the modern Achilles, who gained so 
many victories in the Florida War? " "I bear that name," 
said the Major, " and those titles, trusting at the same time, 
that the ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through 



I 1 4 THE ENEM Y CO A Q UERED; 

all my laudable undertakings, and if," continued the Major, 
"you sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like to 
make you my confidant, and learn your address. " The youth 
looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, 
and began: " My name is Roswell. 1 have been recently ad 
mitted to the bar, and can only give a faint outline of my 
future success in that honorable profession; but I trust, sir, 
like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks upon the 
dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to give you any 
assistance in my official capacity, and whatever this muscular 
arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be called from its buried 
greatness" The Major grasped him by the hand, and ex 
claimed: " O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration thou flame 
of burning prosperity, may the Heaven directed blaze be the 
glare of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that seems 
to impede your progress! " 

The road which led to the town, presented many attrac 
tions. Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, 
and was now wending his way to the dreaming spot of his 
fondness. The south winds whistled through the woods, as 
the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent 
furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, 
that he quietly left behind the hospitality of a father s house, 
and gladly entered the world, with higher hopes than are 
often realized. But as he journeyed onward, he was mind 
ful of the advice of his father, who had often looked sadly on 
the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived hope, moistened 
his eye. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a dutiful son; yet 
fond of the amusements of life had been in distant lands 
had enjoyed the pleasure of the world, and had frequently re 
turned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost destitute of 
many of the comforts of life. In this condition, he would 
frequently say to his father, " Have I offended you, that you 
look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with sting 
ing looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your 
voice? If I have trampled upon your veneration, or have 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. I 15 

spread a humid veil of darkness around your expectations, 
send me back into the world where no heart beats for me 
where the foot of man has never yet trod; but give me at 
least one kind word allow me to come into the presence 
sometimes of thy winter-worn locks." " Forbid it, Heaven, 
that I should be angry with thee," answered the father, " my 
son, and yet I send thee back to the children of the world 
to the cold charity of the combat, and to a land of victory. 
I read another destiny in thy countenance I learn thy in 
clinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul 
a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear Elfonzo, it 
will find thee thou canst not escape that lighted torch, 
which shall blot out from the remembrance of men a long 
train of prophecies which they have foretold against thee. I 
once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path 
of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet Elfonzo, 
return to thy worldly occupation take again in thy hand, 
that chord of sweet sounds struggle with the civilized world, 
and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground 
let the night-(9w/ send forth its screams from the stubborn 
oak let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing to 
gether; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hid 
ing place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful de 
sires must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice 
them to a Higher will." 

Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo 
was immediately urged by the recollection of his father s 
family to keep moving. His steps became quicker and quick 
er he hastened through the piny woods, dark as the forest 
was, and with joy he very soon reached the little village of 
repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His 
close attention to every important object his modest ques 
tions about whatever was new to him his reverence for wise 
old age, and his ardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, 
soon brought him into respectable notice. 

One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets tow- 



Il6 THE ENEMY CONQUERED , 

ard the Academy, which stood upon a small eminence, sur 
rounded by native growth some venerable in its appearance, 
others young and prosperous all seemed inviting, and 
seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for genius 
to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He en 
tered its classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners. 
The principal of the Institution begged him to be seated, 
and listen to the recitations that were going on. He accord 
ingly obeyed the request, and seemed to be much pleased. 
After the school was dismissed, and the young hearts re 
gained their freedom, with the songs of the evening, laugh 
ing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while 
others tittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed 
the teacher in a tone that indicated a resolution with an un 
daunted mind. He said he had determined to become a 
student, if he could meet with his approbation. " Sir," said 
he, " I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled 
among the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met 
with friends, and combated with foes; but none of these 
gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be my destiny. I 
see the learned world have an influence with the voice, of the 
people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest kingdoms 
of the earth, refer their differences to this class of persons. 
This the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and 
now if you will receive me as I am, with these deficiencies 
with all my misguided opinions, I will give you my honor, 
sir, that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those who 
have placed you in this honorable station." The instructor, 
who had met with many disappointments, knew how to feel 
for a stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities 
of an unfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, 
and said: " Be of good cheer look forward, sir, to the high 
destination you may attain. Remember, the more elevated 
the mark at which you aim, the more sure, the more glorious, 
the more magnificent the prize." From wonder to wonder, 
his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. II 7 

nature bloomed before him giant streams promised him 
success gardens of hidden treasures opened to his view. All 
this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a new witchery from 
his glowing fancy. 

In 1842, he entered the class, and made rapid progress in 
the English and Latin departments. Indeed, he continued 
advancing with such rapidity that he was like to become the 
first in his class, and made such unexpected progress, and 
was so studious, that he had almost forgotten the pictured 
saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and 
cypress, had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews 
of Heaven upon the heads of those who had so often poured 
forth the tender emotions of their souls under its boughs. 
He was aware of the pleasure that he had seen there. So 
one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he con 
cluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little 
did he think of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, 
though no doubt, he wished it might be so. He continued 
sauntering by the road-side, meditating on the past. The 
nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became. 
At that moment, a tall female figure flitted across his path, 
with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed 
uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth 
already appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading, 
while her ringlets of hair, dangled unconsciously around her 
snowy neck. NotKing was wanting to complete her beauty. 
The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the 
charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her asso 
ciates. In Ambulinia s bosom dwelt a noble soul one that 
never faded one that never was conquered. Her heart 
yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom she 
gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt herself 
more closely bound, because he sought the hand of no other. 
Elfonzo was roused from his apparent revery. His books no 
longer were his inseparable companions his thoughts ar 
rayed themselves to encourage him to the fielcl of victory. 



Il8 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but his 
speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream 
of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and 
carried his senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, 
to make him more mindful of his duty. As she walked 
speedily away through the piny woods, she calmly echoed: 
" O ! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou 
shalt now walk in a new path perhaps thy way leads through 
darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell happiness." 

Not many days afterwards, as surrounded by fragrant 
flowers, she sat one evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool 
breeze that whispered notes of melody along the distant 
groves, the little birds perched on every side, as if to watch 
the movements of their new visitor. The bells were tolling, 
when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers, 
holding in his hand his favorite instrument of music his 
eye continually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed 
to perceive him, as she played carelessly with the songsters 
that hopped from branch to branch. Nothing could be more 
striking than the difference between the two. Nature seemed 
to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and the 
stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling 
spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo, such a feeling as can only 
be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers, and by 
those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart. 
He was a few years older than Ambulinia: she had turned a 
little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the 
Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one of 
the natives. But little intimacy had existed between them 
until the year forty-one because the youth felt that the 
character of such a lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any 
other feeling than that of quiet reverence. But as lovers 
will not always be insulted, at all times and under all circum 
stances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old age, 
which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, 
and treat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. I 19 

graceful mien, he continued to use diligence and persever 
ance. All this lighted a spark in his heart that changed his 
whole character, and like the unyielding Deity that follows 
the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves for the 
first time to shake off his embarrassment, and return where 
he had before only worshiped. 

It could not escape Ambulinia s penetrating eye, that he 
sought an interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, 
and assumed a more distant calmness than before, seemingly 
to destroy all hope. After many efforts and struggles with 
his own person, with timid steps the Major approached the 
damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in a field 
of battle. " Lady Ambulinia," said he, trembling, " I have 
long desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. 
I fear the consequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at 
least hear my petition. Can you not anticipate what I would 
say, and what I am about to express ? Will you not, like 
Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter, release me 

from thy winding chains or cure me " "Say no more, 

Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising 
her hand as if she intended to swear eternal hatred against 
the whole world, "another lady in my place, would have 
perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I know 
not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the vanity 
of those who would chide me, and am unwilling, as well as 
ashamed to be guilty of any thing that would lead you to 
think all is not gold that glitters: so be not rash in your 
resolution. It is better to repent now, than to do it in a 
more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you would say. 1 
know you have a costly gift for me the noblest that man can 
make your heart! you should not offer it to one so un 
worthy. Heaven, you know, has allowed my father s house 
to be made a house of solitude, a home of silent obedience, 
which my parents say, is more to be admired than big names 
and high sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this, let me 
speak the emotions of an honest heart allow me to say in 



I2O THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

the fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The 
bird may stretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never 
reach; and flowers of the field appear to ascend in the same 
direction, because they cannot do otherwise: but man con 
fides his complaints to the saints in whom he believes; for 
in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From 
your confession and indicative looks, I must be that person: 
if so, deceive not yourself." 

Elfonzo replied, "Pardon me, my dear madam, for my 
frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days every 
thing grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambu- 
linia: while precipices on every hand surrounded me, your 
guardian angel stood and beckoned me away from the deep 
abyss. In every trial in every misfortune, I have met with 
your helping hand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish 
thy love, till a voice impaired with age encouraged the cause, 
and declared they who acquired thy favor, should win a 
victory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I felt my own un- 
worthiness. I began to know jealousy , a strong guest indeed, 
in my bosom, yet I could see if I gained your admiration, 
Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had the in 
fluence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased relative, 
which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular tran 
quillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an 
interest in your prayers to ask you to animate my drooping 
spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for, if you but 
speak, I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like 
Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, 
and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed; 
yet I am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weap 
ons, which will enable me to complete my long tried inten 
tion." " Return to yourself, Elfonzo," said Ambulinia, pleas 
antly, "a dream of vision has disturbed your intellect you 
are above the atmosphere, dwelling in the celestial regions, 
nothing is there that urges or hinders, nothing that brings 
discord into our present litigation. I entreat you to conde- 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 121 

scend a little, and be a man, and forget it all. When Homer 
describes the battle of the gods and noble men, fighting with 
giants and dragons, they represent under this image, our 
struggles with the delusions of our passions. You have 
exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies, you have called 
me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination, an angel in 
human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue 
to be as you have supposed, and be assured that she will 
consider a share in your esteem, as her highest treasure. 
Think not that I would allure you from the path in which 
your conscience leads you; for you know I respect the con 
science of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I 
am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again 
pass between us. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it 
in the stream of time, as the sun set in the Tigris." As she 
spake these words, she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying 
at the same time "peace and prosperity attend you my 
hero: be up and doing." Closing her remarks with this ex 
pression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished 
and amazed. He ventured not to follow, or detain her. 
Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he 
was, here he stood. The rippling stream rolled on at his 
feet. Twilight had already begun to draw her sable mantle 
over the earth, and now and then, the fiery smoke would as 
cend from the little town which lay spread out before him. 
The citizens seemed to be full of life and good humor; but 
poor Elfonzo saw not a brilliant scene. No, his future life 
stood before him, stripped of the hopes that once adorned 
all his sanguine desires. " Alas! " said he, " am I now Grief s 
disappointed son at last." Ambulinia s image rose before 
his fancy. A mixture of ambition and greatness of soul, 
moved upon his young heart, and encouraged him to bear 
all his crosses with the patience of a Job, notwithstanding he 
had to encounter with so many obstacles. He still endeav 
ored to prosecute his studies, and reasonably progressed in 
his education, Still, he was not content; there was some- 



122 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

thing yet to be done, before his happiness was complete. 
He would visit his friends and acquaintances. They would 
invite him to social parties, insisting that he should partake 
of the amusements that were going on. This he enjoyed 
tolerably well. The ladies and gentlemen were generally 
well pleased with the Major; as he delighted all with his vio 
lin, which seemed to have a thousand chords more sym- 
phonious than the Muses of Apollo, and more enchanting 
than the ghost of the Hills. He passed some days in the 
country. During that time Leos had made many calls upon 
Ambulinia, who was generally received with a great deal of 
courtesy by the family. They thought him to be a young 
man worthy of attention, though he had but little in his soul 
to attract the attention, or even win the affections of her 
whose graceful manners had almost made him a slave to 
every bewitching look that fell from her eyes. Leos made 
several attempts to tell her of his fair prospects how much 
he loved her, and how much it would add to his bliss if he 
could but think she would be willing to share these blessings 
with him; but choked by his undertaking, he made himself 
more like an inactive drone, than he did like one who bowed 
at beauty s shrine. 

Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new- 
built village. He now determines to see the end of the proph 
ecy which had been foretold to him. The clouds burst from 
his sight; he believes if he can but see his Ambulinia, he can 
open to her view the bloody altars that have been misrepre 
sented to stigmatize his name. He knows that her breast is 
transfixed with the sword of reason, and ready at all times to 
detect the hidden villainy of her enemies. He resolves to 
see her in her own home, with the consoling theme ; " I 
can but perish if I go. Let the consequences be what they 
may," said he, " if I die, it shall be contending and struggling 
for my own rights." 

Night had almost overtaken him when he arrived in town. 
Col. Elder, a noble-hearted, high-minded and independent 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 123 

man, met him at his door as usual, and seized him by the 
hand. " Well, Elfonzo," said the Col., " how does the world 
use you in your efforts ? " "1 have no objection to the world, " 
said Elfonzo; " but the people are rather singular in some of 
their opinions." "Aye, well," said the Col., "you must 
remember that creation is made up of many mysteries: just 
take things by the right handle be always sure you know 
which is the smooth side, before you attempt your polish 
be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may, and never find 
fault with your condition, unless your complaining will benefit 
it. Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable 
in those who have judgment to govern it. I should never 
have been so successful in my hunting excursions, had I 
waited till the deer by some magic dream had been drawn to 
the muzzle of the gun, before I made an attempt to fire at 
the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest. The 
great mystery in hunting seems to be, a good marksman, a 
resolute mind, a fixed determination, and my word for it, you 
will never return home without sounding your horn with the 
breath of a new victory. And so with every other undertak 
ing. Be confident that your ammunition is of the right kind 
always pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so soon 
as you perceive a calm, touch her off, and the spoils are 
yours." 

This filled him with redoubled vigor, and he set out with a 
stronger anxiety than ever to the home of Ambulinia. A few 
short steps soon brought him to the door, half out of breath. 
He rapped gently. Ambulinia, who sat in the parlor alone, 
suspecting Elfonzo was near, ventured to the door, opened 
it, and beheld the hero, who stood in an humble attitude, 
bowed gracefully, and as they caught each other s looks, the 
light of peace beamed from the eyes of Ambulinia. Elfonzo 
caught the expression ; a halloo of smothered shouts ran 
through every vein, and for the first time he dared to impress 
a kiss upon her cheek. The scene was overwhelming; had 
the temptation been less animating, he would not have ven- 



124 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

tured to have acted so contrary to the desired wish of his 
Ambulinia ; but who could have withstood the irresistible 
temptation! What society condemns the practice, but a cold, 
heartless, uncivilized people, that know nothing of the warm 
attachments of refined society ? Here the dead was raised 
to his long cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here 
all doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of oblivion; 
sectional differences no longer disunited their opinions; like 
the freed bird from the cage, sportive claps its rustling wings, 
wheels about to Heaven in a joyful strain, and raises its notes 
to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted upon Elfonzo to be 
seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary absence; 
assuring him the family had retired, consequently they would 
ever remain ignorant of his visit. Advancing toward him, 
she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and from her head 
the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe hung 
waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed 
before him. 

"It does seem to me, my dear sir," said Ambulinia, "that 
you have been gone an age. Oh, the restless hours I have 
spent since I last saw you, in yon beautiful grove. There is 
where I trifled with your feelings for the express purpose of 
trying your attachment for me. I now find you are devoted; 
but ah! I trust you live not unguarded by the powers of 
Heaven. Though oft did I refuse to join my hand with thine, 
and as oft did I cruelly mock thy entreaties with borrowed 
shapes: yes, I feared to answer thee by terms, in words sin 
cere and undissembled. O! could I pursue, and you had 
leisure to hear the annals of my woes, the evening star would 
shut Heaven s gates upon the impending day, before my tale 
would be finished, and this night would find me soliciting 
your forgiveness." "Dismiss thy fears and thy doubts," 
replied Elfonzo. "Look O! look: that angelic look of thine, 
bathe not thy visage in tears; banish those floods that are 
gathering; let my confession and my presence bring thee 
some relief." "Then, indeed, I will be cheerful," said Am- 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 12$ 

bulinia, "and I think if we will go to the exhibition this 
evening, we certainly will see something worthy of our atten 
tion. One of the most tragical scenes is to be acted that has 
ever been witnessed, and one that every jealous-hearted per 
son should learn a lesson from. It cannot fail to have a good 
effect, as it will be performed by those who are young and 
vigorous, and learned as well as enticing. You are aware, 
Major Elfonzo, who are to appear on the stage, and what the 
characters are to represent." "I am acquainted with the 
circumstances," replied Elfonzo, "and as I am to be one of 
the musicians upon that interesting occasion, I should be 
much gratified if you would favor me with your company dur 
ing the hours of the exercises." 

"What strange notions are in your mind ?" inquired Am- 
bulinia. " Now I know you have something in view, and I 
desire you to tell me why it is that you are so anxious that I 
should continue with you while the exercises are going on; 
though if you think I can add to your happiness and predi 
lections, I have no particular objection to acquiesce in your 
request. Oh, I think I foresee, now, what you anticipate." 
" And will you have the goodness to tell me what you think 
it to be ? " inquired Elfonzo. By all means, " answered Ambu- 
linia; "a rival, sir, you would fancy in your own mind; but 
let me say to you, fear not! fear not! I will be one of the 
last persons to disgrace my sex, by thus encouraging every 
one who may feel disposed to visit me, who may honor me 
with their graceful bows and their choicest compliments. It 
is true, that young men too often mistake civil politeness for 
the finer emotions of the heart, which is tantamount to court 
ship; but, ah! how often are they deceived, when they come 
to test the weight of sunbeams, with those on whose strength 
hangs the future happiness of an untried life." 

The people were now rushing to the Academy with impa 
tient anxiety; the band of music was closely followed by the 
students; then the parents and guardians; nothing inter 
rupted the glow of spirits which ran through every bosom, 



126 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

tinged with the songs of a Virgil and the tide of a Homer. 
Elfonzo and Ambulinia soon repaired to the scene, and for 
tunately for them both, the house was so crowded that they 
took their seats together in the music department, which was 
not in view of the auditory. This fortuitous circumstance 
added more to the bliss of the major than a thousand such 
exhibitions would have done. He forgot that he was man! 
music had lost its charms for him; whenever he attempted 
to carry his part, the string of the instrument would break, 
the bow became stubborn, and refused to obey the loud calls 
of the audience. Here, he said, was the paradise of his 
home, the long sought for opportunity; he felt as though he 
could send a million supplications to the throne of heaven, 
for such an exalted privilege. Poor Leos, who was some 
where in the crowd, looking as attentively as if he was search 
ing for a needle in a haystack; here he stood, wondering to 
himself why Ambulinia was not there. "Where can she be? 
Oh! if she was only here, how I could relish the scene! El 
fonzo is certainly not in town; but what if he is? I have got 
the wealth, if I have not the dignity, and I am sure that the 
squire and his lady have always been particular friends of 
mine, and I think with this assurance I shall be able to get 
upon the blind side of the rest of the family, and make the 
heaven-born Ambulinia the mistress of all I possess." Then, 
again, he would drop his head, as if attempting to solve the 
most difficult problem in Euclid. While he was thus conjec 
turing in his own mind, a very interesting part of the exhibi 
tion was going on, which called the attention of all present. 
The curtains of the stage waved continually by the repelled 
forces that were given to them, which caused Leos to behold 
Ambulinia leaning upon the chair of Elfonzo. Her lofty 
beauty, seen by the glimmering of the chandelier, filled his 
heart with rapture, he knew not how to contain himself; to 
go where they were, would expose him to ridicule; to con 
tinue where he was, with such an object before him, without 
being allowed an explanation in that trying hour, would he 



, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 



to the great injury of his mental as well as of his physical 
powers; and, in the name of high heaven, what must he do? 
Finally, he resolved to contain himself as well as he con 
veniently could, until the scene was over, and then he would 
plant himself at the door, to arrest Ambulinia from the hands 
of the insolent Elfonzo, and thus make for himself a more 
prosperous field of immortality than ever was decreed by 
Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist imagined. Ac 
cordingly he made himself sentinel, immediately after the 
performance of the evening, retained his position apparently 
in defiance of all the world, he waited, he gazed at every lady, 
his whole frame trembled; here he stood, until everything 
like human shape had disappeared from the institution, and 
he had done nothing ; he had failed to accomplish that 
which he so eagerly sought for. Poor, unfortunate creature ! 
he had not the eyes of an Argus, or he might have seen his 
Juno and Elfonzo, assisted by his friend Sigma, make their 
escape from the window, and, with the rapidity of a race 
horse, hurry through the blast of the storm, to the residence 
of her father, without being recognized. He did not tarry 
long, but assured Ambulinia the endless chain of their exist 
ence was more closely connected than ever, since he had seen 
the virtuous, innocent, imploring, and the constant Amelia 
murdered by the jealous-hearted Farcillo, the accursed of the 
land. 

The following is the tragical scene, which is only intro 
duced to show the subject matter that enabled Elfonzo to 
come to such a determinate resolution, that nothing of 
the kind should ever dispossess him of his true character, 
should he be so fortunate as to succeed in his present under 
taking. 

Amelia was the wife of Farcillo, and a virtuous woman; 
Gracia, a young lady, was her particular friend and confidant. 
Farcillo grew jealous of Amelia, murders her, finds out that 
he was deceived, and stabs himself. Amelia appears alone, 
talking to herself. 



128 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

A. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred tombs and 
silent walks! it is your aid I invoke; it is to you, my soul, 
wrapt in deep meditation, pours forth its prayer. Here I 
wander upon the stage of mortality, since the world hath 
turned against me. Those whom I believed to be my friends, 
alas! are now my enemies, planting thorns in all my paths, 
poisoning all my pleasures, and turning the past to pain. 
What a lingering catalogue of sighs and tears lies just before 
me, crowding my aching bosom with the fleeting dream of 
humanity, which must shortly terminate. And to what pur 
pose will all this bustle of life, these agitations and emotions 
of the heart have conduced, if it leave behind it nothing of 
utility, if it leave no traces of improvement! Can it be that 
I am deceived in my conclusion? No, I see that I have 
nothing to hope for, but everything to fear, which tends to 
drive me from the walks of time. 

Oh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise, 
To lash the surge and bluster in the skies, 
May the west its furious rage display, 
Toss me with storms in the watery way. 

{Enter Gracia.) 

G. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the daughter 
of opulence, of wisdom and philosophy, that thus complain- 
eth ? It can not be you are the child of misfortune, speaking 
of the monuments of former ages, which were allotted not 
for the reflection of the distressed, but for the fearless and 
bold. 

A. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir of glory 
and peace, but of fate. Remember, I have wealth more than 
wit can number; I have had power more than kings could 
encompass; yet the world seems a desert; all nature appears 
an afflictive spectacle of warring passions. This blind fatality, 
that capriciously sports with the rules and lives of mortals, 
tells me that the mountains will never again send forth the 
water of their springs to my thirst. Oh, that I might be 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. I 29 

freed and set at liberty from wretchedness! But I fear, I fear 
this will never be. 

G. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief ? What has caused 
the sorrows that bespeak better and happier days, to thus 
lavish out such heaps of misery? You are aware that your 
instructive lessons embellish the mind with holy truths, by 
wedding its attention to none but great and noble affections. 

A. This, of course, is some consolation. I will ever love 
my own species with feelings of a fond recollection, and 
while I am studying to advance the universal philanthropy, 
and the spotless name of my own sex, I will try to build my 
own upon the pleasing belief, that I have accelerated the ad 
vancement of one who whispers of departed confidence. 

And I, like some poor peasant fated to reside 

Remote from friends, in a forest wide. 
Oh, see what woman s woes and human wants require, 
Since that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire. 

G. Look up, thou poor disconsolate; you speak of quit 
ting earthly enjoyments. Unfold thy bosom to a friend, who 
would be willing to sacrifice every enjoyment for the restora 
tion of that dignity and gentleness of mind, which used to 
grace your walks, and which is so natural to yourself; not 
only that, but your paths were strewed with flowers of every 
hue and of every order. 

With verdant green the mountains glow, 
For thee, for thee, the lilies grow; 
Far stretched beneath the tented hills, 
A fairer flower the valley fills. 

A. Oh, would to Heaven I could give you a short narra 
tive of my former prospects for happiness, since you have ac 
knowledged to be an unchangeable confidant the richest of 
all other blessings. Oh, ye names forever glorious, ye cele 
brated scenes, ye renowned spot of my hymeneal moments ; how 
replete is your chart with sublime reflections! How many 



130 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

profound vows, decorated with immaculate deeds, are written 
upon the surface of that precious spot of earth, where I 
yielded up my life of celibacy, bade youth with all its beauties 
a final adieu, took a last farewell of the laurels that had ac 
companied me up the hill of my juvenile career. It was then 
I began to descend toward the valley of disappointment and 
sorrow; it was then I cast my little bark upon a mysterious 
ocean of wedlock, with him who then smiled and caressed 
me, but, alas! now frowns with bitterness, and has grown 
jealous and cold towards me, because the ring he gave me is 
misplaced or lost. Oh, bear me, ye flowers of memory, 
softly through the eventful history of past times; and ye 
places that have witnessed the progression of man in the 
circle of so many societies, aid, oh aid my recollection, while 
I endeavor to trace the vicissitudes of a life devoted in en 
deavoring to comfort him that I claim as the object of my 
wishes. 

Ah! ye mysterious men, of all the world, how few 
Act just to Heaven and to your promise true 
But He who guides the stars with a watchful eye, 
The deeds of men lay open without disguise; 
Oh, this alone will avenge the wrongs I bear, 
For all the oppressed are his peculiar care. 

(F. makes a slight noise.} 
A. Who is there Farcillo ? 

G. Then I must be gone. Heaven protect you. Oh, 
Amelia, farewell, be of good cheer. 

May you stand, like Olympus towers, 
Against earth and all jealous powers! 
May you, with loud shouts ascend on high, 
Swift as an eagle in the upper sky. 

A. Why so cold and distant to-night, Farcillo? Come, 
let us each other greet, and forget all the past, and give 
security for the future. 

F. Security! talk to me about giving security for the 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 131 

future what an insulting requisition ! Have you said your 
prayers to-night, Madam Amelia? 

A. Farcillo, we sometimes forget our duty, particularly 
when we expect to be caressed by others. 

F. If you bethink yourself of any crime, or of any fault, 
that is yet concealed from the courts of Heaven and the 
thrones of grace, I bid you ask and solicit forgiveness for it 
now. 

A. Oh, be kind, Farcillo, don t treat me so. What do 
you mean by all this? 

F. Be kind, you say; you, madam, have forgot that kind 
ness you owe to me, and bestowed it upon another; you shall 
suffer for your conduct when you make your peace with your 
God. I would not slay thy unprotected spirit. I call to 
Heaven to be my guard and my watch I would not kill thy 
soul, in which all once seemed just, right, and perfect; but I 
must be brief, woman. 

A. What, talk you of killing ? Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, what 
is the matter ? 

F. Aye, I do, without doubt; mark what I say, Amelia. 

A. Then, O God, O Heaven, and Angels, be propitious, 
and have mercy upon me. 

F. Amen, to that, madam, with all my heart, and with all 
my soul. 

. A. Farcillo, listen to me one moment; I hope you will not 
kill me. 

F. Kill you, aye, that I will; attest it, ye fair host of light, 
record it, ye dark imps of hell! 

A. Oh, I fear you you are fatal when darkness covers 
your brow; yet I know not why I should fear, since I never 
wronged you in all my life. I stand, sir, guiltless before you. 

F. You pretend to say you are guiltless! Think of thy 
sins, Amelia; think, oh think, hidden woman. 

A. Wherein have I not been true to you ? That death is 
unkind, cruel, and unnatural, that kills for loving. 

F. Peace, and be still while I unfold to thee. 



132 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

A. I will, Farcillo, and while I am thus silent, tell me the 
cause of such cruel coldness in an hour like this. 

F. That ring, oh that ring I so loved, and gave thee as the 
ring of my heart; the allegiance you took to be faithful, when 
it was presented ; the kisses and smiles with which you honored 
it. You became tired of the donor, despised it as a plague, 
and finally gave it to Malos, the hidden, the vile traitor. 

A. No, upon my word and honor, I never did; I appeal to 
the Most High to bear me out in this matter. Send for Ma 
los, and ask him. 

F. Send for Malos, aye ! Malos you wish to see; I thought 
so. I knew you could not keep his name concealed. Amelia, 
sweet Amelia, take heed, take heed of perjury; you are on 
the stage of death, to suffer tor your si/is. 

A. What, not to die 1 hope, my Farcillo, my ever beloved. 

F. Yes, madam, to die a traitor s death. Shortly your 
spirit shall take its exit; therefore confess freely thy sins, for 
to deny tends only to make me groan under the bitter cup 
thou hast made for me. Thou art to die with the name of 
traitor on thy brow! 

A. Then, O Lord, have mercy upon me; give me courage, 
give me grace and fortitude to stand this hour of trial. 

F. Amen, I say, with all my heart. 

A. And, oh, Farcillo, will you have mercy, too? I never 
intentionally offended you in all my life; never loved Malos, 
never gave him cause to think so, as the high court of Jus 
tice will acquit me before its tribunal. 

F. Oh, false, perjured woman, thou dost chill my blood, 
and makest me a demon like thyself. I saw the ring. 

A. He found it, then, or got it clandestinely; send for 
him, and let him confess the truth; let his confession be 
sifted. 

F. And you still wish to see him! I tell you, madam, he 
hath already confessed, and thou knowest the darkness of thy 
heart. 

A. What, my deceived Farcillo, that I gave him the ring, 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 133 

in which all my affections were concentrated ? Oh, surely 
not. 

F. Aye, he did. Ask thy conscience, and it will speak 
with a voice of thunder to thy soul. 

A. He will not say so, he dare not, he can not. 

F. No, he will not say so now, because his mouth, I trust, 
is hushed in death, and his body stretched to tue four winds 
of heaven, to be torn to pieces by carnivorous birds. 

A. What, is he dead, and gone to the world of spirits with 
that declaration in his mouth? Oh, unhappy man! Oh, in 
supportable hour! 

F. Yes, and had all his sighs and looks and tears been 
lives, my great revenge could have slain them all, without the 
least condemnation. 

A. Alas! he is ushered into eternity without testing the 
matter for which I am abused and sentenced and condemned 
to die. 

F. Cursed, infernal woman! Weepest thou for him to my 
face ? He that hath robbed me of my peace, my energy, the 
whole love of my life ? Could I call the fabled Hydra, I 
would have him live and perish, survive and die, until the sun 
itself would grow dim with age. I would make him have the 
thirst of a Tantalus, and roll the wheel of an Ixion, until the 
stars of heaven should quit their brilliant stations. 

A. Oh, invincible God, save me! Oh, unsupportable mo 
ment! Oh, heavy hour! Banish me, Farcillo send me 
where no eye can ever see me, where no sound shall ever 
greet my ear; but, oh, slay me not, Farcillo; vent thy rage 
and thy spite upon this emaciated frame of mine, only spare 
my life. 

F. Your petitions avail nothing, cruel Amelia. 

A. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed to-morrow; let 
me live till then, for my past kindness to you, and it may be 
some kind angel will show to you that I am not only the ob 
ject of innocence, but one who never loved another but your 
noble self. 



134 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

F. Amelia, the decree has gone forth, it is to be done, and 
that quickly; thou art to die, madam. 

A. But half an hour allow me, to see my father and my 
only child, to tell her the treachery and vanity of this world. 

F. There is no alternative, there is no pause; my daughter 
shall not see its deceptive niother die; your father shall not 
know that his daughter fell disgraced, despised by all but her 
enchanting Malos. 

A. Oh, Farcillo, put up thy threatening dagger into its 
scabbard; let it rest and be still, just while I say one prayer 
for thee and for my child. 

F. It is too late, thy doom is fixed, thou hast not confessed 
to Heaven or to me, my child s protector thou art to die. 
Ye powers of earth and heaven, protect and defend me in 
this alone. (Stabs her, while imploring for mercy.) 

A. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, a guiltless death I die. 

F. Die! die! die! 

(Gracia enters running, falls to her knees weeping, and kisses 
Amelia.} 

G. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo! oh, Farcillo! 

F. I am here, the genius of the age, and the avenger of 
my wrongs. 

G. Oh, lady, speak once more; sweet Amelia, oh speak 
again. Gone, gone yes, forever gone! Farcillo, oh, cold- 
hearted Farcillo, some evil fiend hath urged you to do this, 
Farcillo. 

F. Say you not so again, or you shall receive the same fate. 
I did the glorious deed, madam beware, then, how you talk. 

G. I fear not your implements of war; I will let you know 
you have not the power to do me harm. If you have a heart 
of triple brass, it shall be reached and melted, and thy blood 
shall chill thy veins and grow stiff in thy arteries. Here is 
the ring of the virtuous and innocent murdered Amelia; I 
obtained it from Malos, who yet lives, in hopes that he will 
survive the wound given him, and says he got it clandestinely 
declares Amelia to be the princess of truth and virtue, in- 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 135 

vulnerable to anything like forgetting her first devotion to 
thee. The world has heard of your conduct and your jeal 
ousy, and with one universal voice declare her to be the best 
of all in piety; that she is the star of this great universe, and 
a more virtuous woman never lived since the wheels of time 
began. Oh, had you waited till to-morrow, or until I had re 
turned, some kind window would have been opened to her 
relief. But, alas! she is gone yes, forever gone, to try the 
realities of an unknown world ! 

(Farcillo leaning over the body of Amelia.} 
F. Malos not dead, and here is my ring! Oh, Amelia! 
falsely, falsely murdered! Oh, bloody deed! Oh, wretch 
that I am! Oh, angels forgive me! Oh, God, withhold thy 
vengeance! Oh, Amelia! if Heaven would make a thousand 
worlds like this, set with diamonds, and all of one perfect 
chrysolite, I would not have done this for them all, I would 
not have frowned and cursed as I did. Oh, she was heavenly 
true, nursed in the very lap of bright angels! Cursed slave 
that I am! Jealousy, oh! thou infernal demon! Lost, lost 
to every sense of honor! Oh! Amelia heaven-born Amelia 
dead, dead! Oh! oh! oh! then let me die with thee. 
Farewell! farewell! ye world that deceived me! (Stabs him 
self.) 

Soon after the excitement of this tragical scene was over, 
and the enlisted feeling for Amelia had grown more buoyant 
with Elfonzo and Ambulinia, he determined to visit his re 
tired home, and make the necessary improvements to enjoy a 
better day; consequently he conveyed the following lines to 
Ambulinia: 

Go tell the world that hope is glowing, 
Go bid the rocks their silence break, 
Go tell the stars that love is glowing, 
Then bid the hero his lover take. 

In the region where scarcely the foot of man hath ever 



136 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

trod, where the woodman hath not found his way, lies a 
blooming grove, seen only by the sun when he mounts his 
lofty throne, visited only by the light of the stars, to whom 
are entrusted the guardianship of earth, before the sun sinks 
to rest in his rosy bed. High cliffs of rocks surround the ro 
mantic place, and in the small cavity of the rocky wall grows 
the daffodil clear and pure; and as the wind blows along 
the enchanting little mountain which surrounds the lonely 
spot, it nourishes the flowers with the dew-drops of heaven. 
Here is the seat of Elfonzo; darkness claims but little victory 
over this dominion, and in vain does she spread out her 
gloomy wings. Here the waters flow perpetually, and the 
trees lash their tops together to bid the welcome visitor a 
happy muse. Elfonzo during his short stay in the country, 
had fully persuaded himself that it was his duty to bring this 
solemn matter to an issue. A duty that he individually 
owed; as a gentleman, to the parents of Ambulinia, a duty 
in itself involving not only his own happiness and his own 
standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the 
parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should 
communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was 
at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Va- 
leer in prose or in poetiy, in a jocular or an argumentative 
manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal in 
junction, or seize arid take by reprisal; if it was to do the lat 
ter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, 
but his gentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to 
address the following letter to the father and mother of Am 
bulinia, as his address in person he knew would only aggra 
vate the old gentleman, and perhaps his lady. 

GUMMING, GA. , January 22, 1844. 
MR. AND MRS. VALEER 

Again, I resume the pleasing task of addressing you, and once 
more beg an immediate answer to my many salutations. From 
every circumstance that has taken place, I feel in duty bound to 
comply with my obligations; to forfeit my word would be more 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 137 

than I dare do; to break my pledge, and my vows that have been 
witnessed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of an unseen 
Deity, would be disgraceful on my part, as well as ruinous to 
Ambulinia. I wish no longer to be kept in suspense about this 
matter. I wish to act gentlemanly in every particular. It is 
true, the promises I have made, are unknown to any but Ambu 
linia, and I think it unnecessary to here enumerate them, as they 
who promise the most, generally perform the least. Can you for 
a moment doubt my sincerity, or my character ? My only wish 
is, sir, that you may calmly and dispassionately look at the situa 
tion of the case, and if your better judgment should dictate other 
wise, my obligations may induce me to pluck the flower that you 
so diametrically opposed. We have sworn by the saints by the 
gods of battle, and by that faith whereby just men are made per 
fect, to be united. I hope, my dear sir, you will find it conven 
ient as well as agreeable, to give me a favorable answer, with the 
signature of Mrs. Valeer, as well as yourself. 
With very great esteem, 

your humble servant, 

J. I. ELFONZO. 

The moon and stars had grown pale, when Ambulinia had 
retired to rest. A crowd of unpleasant thoughts passed 
through her bosom. Solitude dwelt in her chamber no 
sound from the neighboring world penetrated its stillness; it 
appeared a temple of silence, of repose, and of mystery. At 
that moment she heard a still voice calling her father. In 
an instant, like the flash of lightning, a thought ran through 
her mind, that it must be the bearer of Elfonzo s communi 
cation. "It is not a dream!" she said, " no, I cannot read 
dreams. Oh! I would to Heaven I was near that glowing 
eloquence that poetical language, it charms the mind in 
an inexpressible manner, and warms the coldest heart." 
While consoling herself with this strain, her father rushed 
into her room almost frantic with rage, exclaiming: " O, 
Ambulinia ! Ambulinia ! ! undutiful, ungrateful daughter ! 
What does this mean ? Why does this letter bear such 
heartrending intelligence? Will you quit a father s house 



138 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

with this debased wretch, without a place to lay his distracted 
head; going up and down the country, with every novel ob 
ject that may chance to wander through this region. He is 
a pretty man to make love known to his superiors, and you, 
Ambulinia, have done but little credit to yourself by honor 
ing his visits. O wretchedness! can it be, that my hopes of 
happiness are forever blasted! Will you not listen to a fa 
ther s entreaties, and pay some regard to a mother s tears. I 
know, and I do pray that God will give me fortitude to bear 
with this sea of troubles, and rescue my daughter, my Ambu- 
linia, as a brand from the eternal burning." " Forgive me, 
father, Oh! forgive thy child," replied Ambulinia. "My 
heart is ready to break, when I see you in this grieved state 
of agitation. Oh! think not so meanly of me, as that I 
mourn for my own danger. Father, I am only woman. 
Mother, I am only the templement of thy youthful years; but 
will suffer courageously whatever punishment you think 
proper to inflict upon me, if you will but allow me to comply 
with my most sacred promises if you will but give me my 
personal right, and my personal liberty. Oh father! if your 
generosity will but give me these, I ask nothing more. 
When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave him my hand, 
never to forsake him, and now may the mighty God banish 
me, before I leave him in adversity. What a heart must I 
have to rejoice in prosperity with him whose offers I have ac 
cepted, and then, when poverty comes, haggard as it may be, 
for me to trifle with the oracles of Heaven, and change 
with every fluctuation that may interrupt our happiness, 
like the politician who runs the political gauntlet for office 
one day, and the next day, because the horizon is darkened 
a little, he is seen running for his life, for fear he might per 
ish in its ruins. Where is the philosophy; where is the con 
sistency; where is the charity; in conduct like this? Be 
happy then, my beloved father, and forget me; let the sor 
row of parting break down the wall of separation and make 
us equal in our feeling; let me now say how ardently I love 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 

you; let me kiss that age-worn cheek, and should my tears 
bedew thy face, I will wipe them away. Oh, I never can for 
get you; no, never, never!" 

" Weep not, "said the father, " Ambulinia. I will forbid 
Elfonzo my house, and desire that you may keep retired a 
few days. 1 will let him know, that my friendship for my 
family is not linked together by cankered chains; and if he 
ever enters upon my premises again, I will send him to his 
long home." "Oh, father! let me entreat you to be calm 
upon this occasion, and though Elfonzo may be the sport of 
the clouds and winds; yet I feel assured, that no fate will 
send him to the silent tomb, until the God of the Universe 
calls him hence with a triumphant voice." 

Here the father turned away, exclaiming: " I will answer 
his letter in a very few words, and you, madam, will have the 
goodness to stay at home with your mother: and remember, 
I am determined to protect you from the consuming fire that 
looks so fair to your view." 

GUMMING, January 22, 1844. 

SIR In regard to your request, I am as I ever have been, 
utterly opposed to your marrying into my family; and if you have 
any regard for yourself, or any gentlemanly feeling, I hope you 
will mention it to me no more; but seek some other one who is 
not so far superior to you in standing. 

W. W. VALEER. 

When Elfonzo read the above letter, he became so much 
depressed in spirits, that many of his friends thought it ad 
visable to use other means to bring about the happy union. 
" Strange," said he, "that the contents of this diminutive 
letter should cause me to have such depressed feelings; but 
there is a nobler theme than this. I know not why my mili 
tary title is not as great as that of Squire Valeer. For my 
life I cannot see that my ancestors are inferior to those who 
are so bitterly opposed to my marriage with Ambulinia. I 
know I have seen huge mountains before me, yet, when I 
think that I know gentlemen will insult me upon this delicate 



I4O THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

matter, should I become angry at fools and babblers, who 
pride themselves in their impudence and ignorance. No. 
My equals! I know not where to find them. My inferiors! I 
think it beneath me; and my superiors! I think it presump 
tion: therefore, if this youthful heart is protected by any of 
the divine rights, I never will betray my trust." 

He was aware that Ambulinia had a confidence, that was 
indeed, as firm and as resolute, as she was beautiful and in 
teresting. He hastened to the cottage of Louisa, who re 
ceived him in her usual mode of pleasantness, and informed 
him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. " Is it pos 
sible? " said Elfonzo. " Oh murdered hour! Why did she 
not remain and be the guardian of my secrets ? But hasten 
and tell me, how she has stood this trying scene, and what 
are her future determinations." " You know," said Louisa, 
"Maj. Elfonzo, that you have Ambulinia s first love, which 
is of no small consequence. She came here about twilight, 
and shed many precious tears in consequence of her own fate 
with yours. We walked silently, in yon little valley you see, 
where we spent a momentary repose. She seemed to be 
quite as determined as ever, and before we left that beautiful 
spot she offered up a prayer to Heaven for thee." "I will 
see her then," replied Elfonzo, "though legions of enemies 
may oppose. She is mine by foreordination she is mine by 
prophecy she is mine by her own free will, and I will rescue 
her from the hands of her oppressors. Will you not, Miss 
Louisa, assist me in my capture ?" " I will certainly, by the 
aid of Divine Providence," answered Louisa, "endeavor to 
break those slavish chains that bind the richest of prizes; 
though allow me, Major, to entreat you to use no harsh 
means on this important occasion; take a decided stand, and 
write freely to Ambulinia upon this subject, and I will see 
that no intervening cause hinders its passage to her. God 
alone will save a mourning people. Now is the day, and now 
is the hour to obey a command of such valuable worth." 
The Major felt himself grow stronger after this short inter- 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 



view with Louisa. He felt as if he could whip his weight in 
wild-cats he knew he was master of his own feelings, and 
could now write a letter that would bring this litigation to an 

issue. 

GUMMING, January 24, 1844. 
DEAR AMBULINIA 

We have now reached the most trying moment of our lives; 
we are pledged not to forsake our trust; we have waited fora 
favorable hour to come, thinking your friends would settle the 
matter agreeably among themselves, and finally be reconciled to 
our marriage; but as I have waited in vain, and looked in vain, I 
have determined in my own mind to make a proposition to you, 
though you may think it not in accordance with your station, or 
compatible with your rank; yet, "sub hoc signo vinces." You 
know I cannot resume my visits, in consequence of the utter 
hostility that your father has to me; therefore the consummation 
of our union will have to be sought for in a more sublime sphere, 
at the residence of a respectable friend of this village. You can 
not have any scruples upon this mode of proceeding, if you will 
but remember it emanates from one who loves you better than his 
own life who is more than anxious to bid you welcome to a new 
and a happy home. Your warmest associates say come; the tal 
ented, the learned, the wise and the experienced say come; all 
these with their friends say, come. Viewing these, with many other 
inducements, I flatter myself that you will come to the embraces 
of your Elfonzo; for now is the time of your acceptance and the 
day of your liberation. You cannot be ignorant, Ambulinia, that 
thou art the desire of my heart; its thoughts are too noble, and 
too pure, to conceal themselves from you. I shall wait for your 
answer to this impatiently, expecting that you will set the time 
to make your departure, and to be in readiness at a moment s 
warning to share the joys of a more preferable life. This will be 
handed you by Louisa, who will take a pleasure in communicat 
ing anything to you that may relieve your dejected spirits, and 
will assure you that I now stand ready, willing and waiting to 
make good my vows. \ arri) dear Ambulinia, yours 

truly, and forever, 

J. I. ELFONZO. 



142 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

Louisa made it convenient to visit Mr. Valeer s, though 
they did not suspect her in the least, the bearer of love 
epistles: consequently, she was invited in the room to con 
sole Ambulinia, where they were left alone. Ambulmia was 
seated by a small table her head resting on her hand her 
brilliant eyes were bathed in tears. Louisa handed her the 
letter of Elfonzo, when another spirit animated her features 
the spirit of renewed confidence that never fails to strengthen 
the female character in an hour of grief and sorrow like this, 
and as she pronounced the last accent of his name, she ex 
claimed, " and does he love me yet! I never will forget your 
generosity, Louisa. Oh, unhappy and yet blessed Louisa! 
may you never feel what I have felt may you never know 
the pangs of love. Had I never loved, I never would have 
been unhappy; but I turn to Him who can save, and if His 
wisdom does not will my expected union, I know He will give 
me strength to bear my lot. Amuse yourself with this little 
book, and take it as an apology for my silence," said Ambu 
linia, " while I attempt to answer this volume of consolation." 
"Thank you," said Louisa, "you are excusable upon this 
occasion; but I pray you, Ambulinia, to be expert upon this 
momentous subject, that there may be nothing mistrustful 
upon my part." "I will," said Ambulinia, and immediately 
resumed her seat and addressed the following to Elfonzo: 

GUMMING, GA., January 28, 1844. 
DEVOTED ELFONZO 

I bail your letter as a welcome messenger of faith, and can 
now say truly and firmly, that my feelings correspond with yours. 
Nothing shall be wanting on my part to make my obedience your 
fidelity. Courage and perseverance will accomplish success. 
Receive this as my oath, that while I grasp your hand in my own 
imagination, we stand united before a higher tribunal than any on 
earth. All the powers of my life, soul, and body, I devote to 
thee. Whatever dangers may threaten me, I fear not to en 
counter them. Perhaps I have determined upon my own de. 
struction, by leaving the house of the best of parents; be it so, I 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 143 

t 

flee to you; I share your destiny, faithful to the end. The day 
that I have concluded upon for this task, is Sabbath next, when 
the family with the citizens are generally at church. For Heav 
en s sake let not that day pass unimproved: trust not till to-mor 
row, it is the cheat of life the future that never comes the grave 
of many noble births the cavern of ruined enterprise: which like 
the lightning s flash is born, and dies, and perishes, ere the voice 
of him who sees, can cry, behold! behold! ! You may trust to 
what I say.no power shall tempt me to betray confidence. Suffer 
me to add one word more. 

1 will soothe thee, in all thy grief, 

Beside the gloomy river; 
And though thy love may yet be brief; 

Mine is fixed forever. 

Receive the deepest emotions of my heart for thy constant 
love, and may the power of inspiration be thy guide, thy portion, 
and thy all. In great haste, Yours faithfully, 

AMBULINIA. 

"I now take my leave of you, sweet girl, "said Louisa, 
"sincerely wishing you success on Sabbath next." When 
Ambulinia s letter was handed to Elfonzo, he perused it with 
out doubting its contents. Louisa charged him to make but 
few confidants; but like most young men who happened to 
win the heart of a beautiful girl, he was so elated with the 
idea, that he felt as a commanding general on parade, who 
had confidence in all, consequently gave orders to all. The 
appointed Sabbath, with a delicious breeze and cloudless sky, 
made its appearance. The people gathered in crowds to the 
church the streets were filled with the neighboring citizens, 
all marching to the house of worship. It is entirely useless 
for me to attempt to describe the feelings of Elfonzo and 
Ambulinia, who were silently watching the movements of the 
multitude, apparently counting them as they entered the 
house of God, looking for the last one to darken the door. 
The impatience and anxiety with which they waited, and the 



144 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

bliss they anticipated on the eventful day, is altogether in 
describable. Those that have been so fortunate as to embark 
in such a noble enterprise, know all its realities; and those 
who have not had this inestimable privilege, will have to taste 
its sweets, before they can tell to others its joys, its comforts, 
and its Heaven-born worth. Immediately after Ambulinia 
had assisted the family off to church, she took the advantage 
of that opportunity to make good her promises. She left a 
home of enjoyment to be wedded to one whose love had been 
justifiable. A few short steps brought her to the presence of 
Louisa, who urged her to make good use of her time, and 
not to delay a moment, but to go with her to her brother s 
house, where Elfonzo would forever make her happy. With 
lively speed, and yet a graceful air, she entered the door and 
found herself protected by the champion of her confidence. 
The necessary arrangements were fast making to have the 
two lovers united every thing was in readiness except the 
Parson; and as they are generally very sanctimonious on 
such occasions, the news got to the parents of Ambulinia, 
before the everlasting knot was tied, and they both came 
running, with uplifted hands and injured feelings, to arrest 
their daughter from an unguarded and hasty resolution. El 
fonzo desired to maintain his ground, but Ambulinia thought 
it best for" him to leave, to prepare for a greater contest. He 
accordingly obeyed, as it would have been a vain endeavor 
for him to have battled against a man who was armed with 
deadly weapons; and besides, he could not resist the request 
of such a pure heart. Ambulinia concealed herself in the 
upper story of the house, fearing the rebuke of her father; 
the door was locked, and no chastisement was now expected. 
Esq. Valeer, whose pride was already touched, resolved to 
preserve the dignity of his family. He entered the house al 
most exhausted, looking wildly for Ambulinia. " Amazed and 
astonished indeed I am," said he, " at a people who call 
themselves civilized, to allow such behavior as this. Ambu 
linia, Ambulinia! " he cried, " come to the calls of your first, 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 



H5 



your best, and your only friend. I appeal to you, sir," turn 
ing to the gentleman of the house, " to know where Ambu- 
linia has gone, or where is she?" " Do you mean to insult 
me, sir, in my own house?" inquired the confounded gentle 
man. "I will burst, "said Mr. V., "asunder every door in 
your dwelling, in search of my daughter, if you do not speak 
quickly, and tell me where she is. I care nothing about that 
outcast rubbish of creation, that mean, low-lived Elfonzo, if 
I can but obtain Ambulinia. Are you not going to open 
this door?" said he. "By the Eternal that made Heaven 
and earth! I will go about the work instantly, if it is not 
done." The confused citizens gathered from all parts of the 
village, to know the cause of this commotion. Some rushed 
into the house; the door that was locked flew open, and there 
stood Ambulinia, weeping. "Father, be still," said she, 
" and I will follow thee home." But the agitated man seized 
her, and bore her off through the gazing multitude. "Fa 
ther!" she exclaimed, "I humbly beg your pardon I will 

be dutiful I will obey thy commands. Let the sixteen years 
I have lived in obedience to thee, be my future security." 
" I don t like to be always giving credit, when the old score 
is not paid up, madam; " said the father. The mother fol 
lowed almost in a state of derangement, crying and imploring 
her to think beforehand, and ask advice from experienced 
persons, and they would tell her it was a rash undertaking. 
"Oh!" said she, "Ambulinia, my daughter, did you know 
what I have suffered did you know how many nights I have 
whiled away in agony, in pain, and in fear, you would pity 
the sorrows of a heartbroken mother." 

"Well, mother," replied Ambulinia, " I know I have been 
disobedient; I am aware that what I have done might have 
been done much better; but oh ! what shall I do with my 
honor? it is so dear to me; I am pledged to Elfonzo. His 
high moral worth is certainly worth some attention; more 
over, my vows, I have no doubt, are recorded in the book of 
life, and must I give these all up ? must my fair hopes be 



146 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

forever blasted ? Forbid it father, oh ! forbid it mother, for 
bid it heaven." " I have seen so many beautiful skies over 
clouded," replied the mother, "so many blossoms nipped by 
the frost, that I am afraid to trust you to the care of those 
fair days, which may be interrupted by thundering and tem 
pestuous nights. You no doubt think as I did life s devious 
ways were strewed with sweet scented flowers, but ah ! how 
long they have lingered around me and took their flight in 
the vivid hopes that laughs at the drooping victims it has 
murdered." Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people 
followed on to see what was going to become of Ambulinia, 
while he, with downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he 
saw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting her, that 
was the sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary 
apartment, when she exclaimed, "Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, 
Elfonzo ! where art thou, with all thy heroes ? haste, oh ! 
haste, come thou to my relief. Ride on the wings of the 
wind ! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and roll on thy 
army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and con 
fusion. Oh, friends ! if any pity me, let your last efforts 
throng upon the green hills, and come to the relief of Am 
bulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent love." Elfon 
zo called out with a loud voice, " my God, can I stand this ! 
arouse up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. 
Come, my brave boys," said he, " are you ready to go forth 
to your duty? " They stood around him. " \Vho," said he, 
" will call us to arms? Where are my thunderbolts of war? 
Speak ye, the first who will meet the foe ! Who will go for 
ward with me in this ocean of grievous temptation ? If there 
is one who desires to go, let him come and shake hands upon 
the altar of devotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes, 
a Hector in a cause like this, which calls aloud for a speedy 
remedy." " Mine be the deed." said a young lawyer, " and 
mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station before 1 will 
forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you; what is death 
to me ? what is all this warlike army, if it is not to win a vie- 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 



tory? I love the sleep of the lover and the mighty; nor 
would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should wreak 
with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should 
soar on the blood of the slumberer." Mr. Valeer stands at 
his door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with his 
dangerous weapon ready to strike the first man who should 
enter his door. " Who will arise and go forward through 
blood and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia ? " said 
Elfonzo. " All," exclaimed the multitude; and onward they 
went, with their implements of battle. Others, of a more 
timid nature, stood among the distant hills to see the result 
of the contest. 

Elfonzo took the lead of his band. Night arose in clouds; 
darkness concealed the heavens; but the blazing hopes that 
stimulated them gleamed in every bosom. All approached 
the anxious spot; they rushed to the front of the house, and 
with one exclamation demanded Ambulinia. "Away, be 
gone, and disturb my peace no more, " said Mr. Valeer. You 
are a set of base, insolent, and infernal rascals. Go, the 
northern star points your path through the dim twilight of 
the night; go, and vent your spite upon the lonely hills; pour 
forth your love, you poor, weak minded wretch, upon your 
idleness and upon your guitar, and your fiddle; they are fit 
subjects for your admiration, for let me assure you, though 
this sword and iron lever are cankered, yet they frown in 
sleep, and let one of you dare to enter my house this night 
and you shall have the contents and the weight of these in 
struments." " Never yet did base dishonor blur my name," 
said Elfonzo; " mine is a cause of renown; here are my war 
riors, fear and tremble, for this night, though hell itself 
should oppose, I will endeavor to avenge her whom thou hast 
banished in solitude. The voice of Ambulina shall be heard 
from that dark dungeon." At that moment Ambulinia ap 
peared at the window above, and with a tremulous voice said, 
live, Elfonzo ! oh ! live to raise my stone of moss ! why 
should such language enter your heart ? why should thy voice 



148 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

rend the air with such agitation ? I bid thee live, once more 
remembering these tears of mine are shed alone for thee, in 
this dark and gloomy vault, and should I perish under this 
load of trouble, join the song of thrilling accents with the 
raven above my grave, and lay this tattered frame beside the 
banks of the Chattahoochee, or the stream of Sawney s brook ; 
sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia. My ghost 
shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise, and tell your high 
fame to the minds of that region, which is far more prefer 
able than this lonely cell. My heart shall speak for thee till 
the latest hour; I know faint and broken are the sounds of 
sorrow, yet our souls, Elfonzo, shall hear the peaceful songs 
together. One bright name shall be ours on high, if we are 
not permitted to be united here; bear in mind that I still 
cherish my old sentiments, and the poet will mingle the 
names of Elfonzo and Ambulinia in the tide of other days." 
" Fly, Elfonzo," said the voices of his united band, "to the 
wounded heart of your beloved. All enemies shall fall be 
neath thy sword. Fly through the clefts, and the dim spark 
shall sleep in death." Elfonzo rushes forward and strikes his 
shield against the door, which was barricaded, to prevent any 
intercourse. His brave sons throng around him. The people 
pour along the streets, both male and female, to prevent or 
witness the melancholy scene. 

" To arms, to arms !" cried Elfonzo, " here is a victory to 
be won, a prize to be gained, that is more to me than the 
whole world beside." "It cannot be done to-night," said 
Mr. Valeer. " I bear the clang of death; my strength and 
armor shall prevail. My Ambulinia shall rest in this hall un 
til the break of another day, and if we fall, we fall together. 
If we die, we die clinging to our tattered rights, and our 
blood alone shall tell the mournful tale of a murdered daugh 
ter and a ruined father." Sure enough, he kept watch all 
night, and was successful in defending his house and family. 
The bright morning gleamed upon the hills, night vanished 
away, the major and his associates felt somewhat ashamed, 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 149 

that they had not been as fortunate as they expected to have 
been; however, they still leaned upon their arms in dispersed 
groups; some were walking the streets, others were talking 
in the major s behalf. Many of the citizens suspended busi 
ness, as the town presented nothing but consternation. A 
novelty that might end in the destruction of some worthy and 
respectable citizens. Mr. Valeer ventured in the streets, 
though not without being well armed. Some of his friends 
congratulated him on the decided stand he had taken, and 
hoped he would settle the matter amicably with Elfonzo, 
without any serious injury. " Me," he replied, " what, me, 
condescend to fellowship with a coward, and a low-live, lazy, 
undermining villain ? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I had 
rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue ocean, 
with Ambulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascend 
ing or descending line of relationship. Gentlemen," contin 
ued he, " if Elfonzo is so much of a distinguished character, 
and is so learned in the fine arts, why do you not patronize 
such men ? why not introduce htm into your families, as a - 
gentleman of taste and of unequaled magnanimity? why are 
you so very anxious that he should become a relative of 
mine? Oh, gentlemen, I fear you yet are tainted with the 
curiosity of our first parents, who were beguiled by the poi 
sonous kiss of an old ugly serpent, and who, for one. apple, 
damned 2\\ mankind. I wish to divest myself, as far as pos 
sible, of that untutored custom. I have long since learned 
that the perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philoso 
phy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambi 
tion to our capacities; we will then be a happy and a virtuous 
people." Ambulinia was sent off to prepare for a long and 
tedious journey. Her new acquaintances had been instructed 
by her father how to treat her, and in what manner, and to 
keep the anticipated visit entirely secret. Elfonzo was watch 
ing the movements of everybody; some friends had told him 
of the plot that was laid to carry off Ambulinia. At night, 
he rallied some two or three of his forces, and went silently 



150 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

along to the stately mansion; a faint and glimmering light 
showed .through the windows; lightly he steps to the door, 
there were many voices rallying fresh in fancy s eye; he 
tapped the shutter, it was opened instantly and he beheld 
once more seated beside several ladies, the hope of all his toils; 
he rushed toward her, she rose from her seat, rejoicing: he 
made one mighty grasp, when Arnbulinia exclaimed, " huzza 
for Major Elfonzo ! I will defend myself and you too, with 
this conquering instrument I hold in my hand; huzza, I say, 
I now invoke time s broad wing to shed around us some dew- 
drops of verdant spring." 

But the hour had not come for this joyous reunion; her 
friends struggled with Elfonzo for some time, and finally suc 
ceeded in arresting her from his hands. He dared not injure 
them, because they were matrons whose courage needed no 
spur; she was snatched from the arms of Elfonzo, with so 
much eagerness, and yet with such expressive signification, 
that he calmly withdrew from this lovely enterprise, with an 
ardent hope that he should he lulled to repose by the zephyrs 
which whispered peace to his soul. Several long days and 
nights passed unmolested, all seemed to have grounded their 
arms of rebellion, and no callidity appeared to be going on 
with any of the parties. Other arrangements were made by 
Arnbulinia; she feigned herself to be entirely the votary of a 
mother s care, and said, by her graceful smiles, that manhood 
might claim his stern dominion in some other region, where 
such boisterous love was not so prevalent. This gave the 
parents a confidence that yielded some hours of sober joy; 
they believed that Arnbulinia would now cease to love Elfon 
zo, and that her stolen affections would now expire with her 
misguided opinions. They therefore declined the idea of 
sending her to a distant land. But oh! they dreamed not of 
the rapture that dazzled the fancy of Ambulinia, who would 
say, when alone, youth should not fly away on his rosy pin 
ions, and leave her to grapple in the conflict with unknown 
admirers. 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 151 

No frowning age shall control 
The constant current of my soul, 
Nor a tear from pity s eye 
Shall check my sympathetic sigh. 

With this resolution fixed in her mind, one dark and dreary 
night, when the winds whistled and the tempest roared, she 
received intelligence that Elfonzo was then waiting, and every 
preparation was then ready, at the residence of Dr. Tully, 
and for her to make a quick escape while the family were re 
posing. Accordingly she gathered her books, went to the 
wardrobe supplied with a variety of ornamental dressing, and 
ventured alone in the streets to make her way to Elfonzo, 
who was near at hand, impatiently looking and watching her 
arrival. " What forms," said she, "are those rising before 
me? What is that dark spot on the clouds?. I do wonder 
what frightful ghost that is, gleaming on the red tempest? 
Oh, be merciful and tell me what region you are from. O 
tell me, ye strong spirits, or ye dark and fleeting clouds, that 
I yet have a friend." "A friend," said a low, whispering 
voice. " I am thy unchanging, thy aged, and thy disap 
pointed mother. Oh, Ambulinia, why hast thou deceived 
me ? Why brandish in that hand of thine a javelin of pointed 
steel ? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand times, 
to equivocate ? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into 
thy soul, and no longer persist in that which may be your 
destruction and ruin. Come, my dear child, retract your 
steps, and bear me company to your welcome home." With 
out one retorting word, or frown from her brow, she yielded 
to the entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness of 
her former character she went along with the silver lamp of 
age, to the home of candor and benevolence. Her father 
received her cold and formal politeness " Where has Ambu 
linia been, this blustering evening, Mrs. Valeer?" inquired 
he. " Oh, she and I have been taking a solitary walk," said 
the mother; "all things, I presume, are now working for the 
best," 



152 THE ENEMY CONQUERED; 

Elfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened. " What," 
said he, " has heaven and earth turned against me? I have 
been disappointed times without number. Shall I despair? 
must I give it over? Heaven s decrees will not fade; I will 
write again I will try again; and if it traverses a gory field, 
I pray forgiveness at the altar of justice." 

DESOLATE HILL, GUMMING, GEO., 1844. 
UNCONQUERED AND BELOVED AMBULINIA 

I have only time to say to you, not to despair; thy fame shall 
not perish; my visions are brightening before me. The whirl 
wind s rage is past, and we now shall subdue our enemies with 
out doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are at 
breakfast, they will not suspect your departure, or even mistrust 
me being in town, as it has been reported advantageously, that I 
have left for the west. You walk carelessly toward the academy 
grove, where you will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly 
equipped to bear you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with 
the first connubial rights. Fail not to do this think not of the 
tedious relations of our wrongs be invincible. You alone oc 
cupy all my ambition, and I alone will make you my happy spouse, 
with the same unimpeached veracity. I remain, forever, your 
devoted friend and admirer, J. I. ELFONZO. 

The appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any clouds; 
nothing disturbed Ambulinia s soft beauty. With serenity 
and loveliness she obeys the request of Elfonzo. The moment 
the family seated themselves at the table " Excuse my ab 
sence for a short time," said she, " while I attend to the plac 
ing of those flowers, which should have been done a week 
ago." And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded 
with glittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo 
hails her with his silver bow and his golden harp. They 
meet Ambulinia s countenance brightens Elfonzo leads up 
his winged steed. " Mount," said he, "ye true hearted, ye 
fearless soul the day is ours." She sprang upon the back of 
the young thunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, 



OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 



S3 



with one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she 
holds an olive-branch. "Lend thy aid, ye strong winds," 
they exclaimed, "ye moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of 
heaven, witness the enemy conquered." "Hold," said El- 
fonzo, "thy dashing steed." "Ride on," said Ambulinia, 
"the voice of thunder is behind us." And onward they 
went, with such rapidity, that they very soon arrived at Rural 
Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with all the 
solemnities that usually attend such divine operations. They 
passed the day in thanksgiving and great rejoicing, and on 
that evening they visited their uncle, where many of their 
friends and acquaintances had gathered to congratulate them 
in the field of untainted bliss. The kind old gentleman met 
them in the yard: " Well," said he, " I wish I may die, El- 
fonzo, if you and Ambulinia haven t tied a knot with your 
tongue that you can t untie with your teeth. But come in, 
come in, never mind, all is right the world still moves on, 
and no one has fallen in this great battle." 

Happy now is their lot! Unmoved by misfortune, they 
live among the fair beauties of the South. Heaven spreads 
their peace and fame upon the arch of the rainbow, and 
smiles propitiously at their triumph, through the tears of the 
storm. 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

THE MODERN STEAMER AND THE OBSOLETE 
STEAMER. 

A ^ 7E are victims of one common superstition 
the superstition that we realize the changes 
that are daily taking place in the world because we 
read about them and know what they are. I should 
not have supposed that the modern ship could be 
a surprise to me, but it is. It seems to be as much 
of a surprise to me as it could have been if I had 
never read anything about it. I walk about this 
great vessel, the " Havel," as she plows her way 
through the Atlantic, and every detail that comes 
under my eye brings up the miniature counterpart 
of it as it existed in the little ships I crossed the 
ocean in, fourteen, seventeen, eighteen, and twenty 
years ago. 

In the "Havel "one can be in several respects 
more comfortable than he can be in the best hotels 
on the continent of Europe. For instance, she 
has several bath rooms, and they are as convenient 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 155 

and as nicely equipped as the bath rooms in a fine 
private house in America ; whereas in the hotels 
of the continent one bath room is considered suf 
ficient, and it is generally shabby and located in 
some out of the way corner of the house ; more 
over, you need to give notice so long beforehand 
that you get over wanting a bath by the time you 
get it. In the hotels there are a good many dif 
ferent kinds of noises, and they spoil sleep; in 
my room in the ship I hear no sounds. In the 
hotels they usually shut off the electric light at 
midnight ; in the ship one may burn it in one s 
room all night. 

In the steamer " Batavia," twenty years ago, one 
candle, set in the bulkhead between two state 
rooms, was there to light both rooms, but did not 
light either of them. It was extinguished at II 
at night, and so were all the saloon lamps except 
one or two, which were left burning to help the 
passenger see how to break his neck trying to get 
around in the dark. The passengers sat at table 
on long benches made of the hardest kind of wood; 
in the " Havel" one sits on a swivel chair with a 
cushioned back to it. In those old times the din 
ner bill of fare was always the same: a pint of some 
simple, homely soup or other, boiled codfish and 
potatoes, slab of boiled beef, stewed prunes for 



156 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

dessert on Sundays " dog in a blanket," on 
Thursdays " plum duff." In the modern ship the 
menu is choice and elaborate, and is changed daily. 
In the old times dinner was a sad occasion; in our 
day a concealed orchestra enlivens it with charm 
ing music. In the old days the decks were always 
wet, in our day they are usually dry, for the 
promenade-deck is roofed over, and a sea seldom 
comes aboard. In a moderately disturbed sea, in 
the old days, a landsman could hardly keep his 
legs, but in such a sea in our day, the decks are 
as level as a table. In the old days the inside of 
a ship was the plainest and barrenest thing, and the 
most dismal and uncomfortable that ingenuity could 
devise; the modern ship is a marvel of rich and 
costly decoration and sumptuous appointment, and 
is equipped with every comfort and convenience 
that money can buy. The old ships had no place 
of assembly but the dining-room, the new ones have 
several spacious and beautiful drawing-rooms. The 
old ships offered the passenger no chance to smoke 
except in the place that was called the " fiddle." 
It was a repulsive den made of rough boards (full 
of cracks) and its office was to protect the main 
hatch. It was grimy and dirty; there were no seats; 
the only light was a lamp of the rancid-oil-and-rag 
kind; the place was very cold, and never dry, for 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 157 

the seas broke in through the cracks every little 
while and drenched the cavern thoroughly. In the 
modern ship there are three or four large smoking- 
rooms, and they have card tables and cushioned 
sofas, and are heated by steam and lighted by elec 
tricity. There are few European hotels with such 
smoking-rooms. 

The former ships were built of wood, and had two 
or three water-tight compartments in the hold with 
doors in them which were often left open, particu 
larly when the ship was going to hit a rock. The 
modern leviathan is built of steel, and the water 
tight bulkheads have no doors in them; they divide 
the ship into nine or ten water-tight compartments 
and endow her with as many lives as a cat. Their 
complete efficiency was established by the happy 
results following the memorable accident to the 
City of Paris a year or two ago. 

One curious thing which is at once noticeable in 
the great modern ship is the absence of hubbub, 
clatter, rush of feet, roaring of orders. That is all 
gone by. The elaborate manoeuvres necessary in 
working the vessel into her dock are conducted 
without sound; one sees nothing of the processes, 
hears no commands. A Sabbath stillness and so 
lemnity reign, in place of the turmoil and racket of 
the earlier days. The modern ship has a spacious 



158 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

bridge fenced chin-high with sail-cloth, and floored 
with wooden gratings; and this bridge, with its 
fenced fore-and-aft annexes, could accommodate a 
seated audience of a hundred and fifty men. There 
are three steering equipments, each competent if the 
others should break. From the bridge the ship is 
steered, and also handled. The handling is not 
done by shout or whistle, but by signaling with 
patent automatic gongs. There are three tell-tales, 
with plainly lettered dials for steering, handling 
the engines, and for communicating orders to the 
invisible mates who are conducting the landing of 
the ship or casting off. The officer who is astern is 
out of sight and too far away to hear trumpet calls; 
but the gongs near him tell him to haul in, pay out, 
make fast, let go, and so on; he hears, but the pas 
sengers do not. and so the ship seems to land her 
self without human help. 

This great bridge is thirty or forty feet above the 
water, but the sea climbs up there sometimes ; so there 
is another bridge twelve or fifteen feet higher still, 
for use in these emergencies. The force of water is 
a strange thing. It slips between one s fingers like 
air, but upon occasion it acts like a solid body and 
will bend a thin iron rod. In the " Havel " it has 
splintered a heavy oaken rail into broom-straws 
instead of merely breaking it in two as would have 



ABOUT ALL KIND S OF SHIPS. 159 

been the seemingly natural thing for it to do. At 
the time of the awful Johnstown disaster, according 
to the testimony of several witnesses, rocks were 
carried some distance on the surface of the stupen 
dous torrent; and at St. Helena, many years ago, a 
vast sea-wave carried a battery of cannon forty feet 
up a steep slope and deposited the guns there in a 
row. But the water has done a still, stranger thing, 
and it is one which is credibly vouched for. A 
marlinspike is an implement, about a foot long 
which tapers from its butt to the other extremity 
and ends in a sharp point. It is made of iron and 
is heavy. A wave came aboard a ship in a storm 
and raged aft, breast high, carrying a marlinspike 
point-first with it, and with such lightning-like 
swiftness and force as to drive it three or four inches 
into a sailor s body and kill him. 

In all ways the ocean greyhound of to-day is im 
posing and impressive to one who carries in his head 
no ship-pictures of a recent date. In bulk she 
comes near to rivaling the Ark; yet this monstrous 
mass of steel is driven five hundred miles through 
the waves in twenty-four hours. I remember the 
brag run of a steamer which I traveled in once on 
the Pacific it was two hundred and nine miles in 
twenty-four hours; a year or so later I was a pas 
senger in the excursion-tub " Quaker City," and on 



l6o ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

one occasion in a level and glassy sea, it was claimed 
that she reeled off two hundred and eleven miles 
between noon and noon, but it was probably a cam 
paign lie. That little steamer had seventy passen 
gers, and a crew of forty men, and seemed a good 
deal of a bee-hive. But in this present ship we are 
living in a sort of solitude, these soft summer days, 
with sometimes a hundred passengers scattered 
about the spacious distances, and sometimes nobody 
in sight at all; yet, hidden somewhere in the ves 
sel s bulk, there are (including crew,) near eleven 
hundred people. 

The stateliest lines in the literature of the sea are 
these: 

" Britannia needs no bulwark, no towers along the steep 
Her march is o er the mountain wave, her home is on the 
deep!" 

There it is. In those old times the little ships 
climbed over the waves and wallowed down into 
the trough on the other side; the giant ship of our 
day does not climb over the waves, but crushes her 
way through them. Her formidable weight and 
mass and impetus give her mastery over any but 
extraordinary storm -waves. 

The ingenuity of man ! I mean in this passing 
generation. To-day I found in the chart-room a 
frame of removable wooden slats on the wall, and 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. \ 6 1 

on the slats was painted uniforming information 

like this: 

Trim-Tank Empty 

Double- Bottom No. i Full 

Double-Bottom No. 2 Full 

Double-Bottom No. 3 Full 

Double-Bottom No. 4 Full 

While I was trying to think out what kind of a 
game this might be and how a stranger might best 
go to work to beat it, a sailor came in and pulled 
out the " Empty " end of the first slat and put it 
back with its reverse side to the front, marked 
" Full." He made some other change, I did not 
notice what. The slat-frame was soon explained. 
Its function was to indicate how the ballast in the 
ship was distributed. The striking thing was, that 
that ballast was water. I did not know that a ship 
had ever been ballasted with water. I had merely 
read, some time or other, that such an experiment 
was to be tried. But that is the modern way: be 
tween the experimental trial of a new thing and its 
adoption, there is no wasted time, if the trial proves 
its value. 

On the wall, near the slat-frame, there was an 
outline drawing of the ship, and this betrayed the 
fact that this vessel has twenty-two considerable 
lakes of water in her. These lakes are in her bot 
tom; they are imprisoned between her real bottom 



I 62 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

and a false bottom. They are separated from each 
other, thwartships, by water-tight bulkheads, and 
separated down the middle by a bulkhead running 
from the bow four-fifths of the way to the stern. It 
is a chain of lakes four hundred feet long and from 
five to seven feet deep. Fourteen of the lakes con 
tain fresh water brought from shore, and the aggre 
gate weight of it is four hundred tons. The rest of 
the lakes contain salt water six hundred and 
eighteen tons. Upwards of a thousand tons of water, 
altogether. 

Think how handy this ballast is. The ship leaves 
port with the lakes all full. As she lightens forward 
through consumption of coal, she loses trim her 
head rises, her stern sinks down. Then they spill 
one of the sternward lakes into the sea, and the 
trim is restored. This can be repeated right along 
as occasion may require. Also, a lake at one end 
of the ship can be moved to the other end by pipes 
and steam pumps. When the sailor changed the 
slat-frame to-day, he was posting a transference of 
that kind. The seas had been increasing, and the 
vessel s head needed more weighting, to keep it 
from rising on the waves instead of plowing through 
them; therefore, twenty-five tons of water had been 
transferred to the bow from a lake situated well 
toward the stern. 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 163 

A water compartment is kept either full or empty. 
The body of water must be compact, so that it can 
not slosh around. A shifting ballast would not do, 
of course. 

The modern ship is full of beautiful ingenuities, 
but it seems to me that this one is the king. I would 
rather be the originator of that idea than of any of 
the others. Perhaps the trim of a ship was never 
perfectly ordered and preserved until now. A ves 
sel out of trim will not steer, her speed is maimed, 
she strains and labors in the seas. Poor creature, 
for six thousand years she has had no comfort until 
these latest days. For six thousand years she swam 
through the best and cheapest ballast in the world, 
the only perfect ballast, but she could n t tell her 
master and he had not the wit to find it out for 
himself. It is odd to reflect that there is nearly as 
much water inside of this ship as there is outside, 
and yet there is no danger. 

NOAH S ARK. 

The progress made in the great art of ship build 
ing since Noah s time is quite noticeable. Also, the 
looseness of the navigation laws in the time of Noah 
is in quite striking contrast with the strictness of 
the navigation laws of our time. It would not be 
possible for Noah to do in our day what he was per- 



164 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

mitted to do in his own. Experience has taught us 
the necessity of being more particular, more con 
servative, more careful of human life. Noah would 
not be allowed to sail from Bremen in our day. The 
inspectors would come and examine the Ark, and 
make all sorts of objections. A person who knows 
Germany can imagine the scene and the conversa 
tion without difficulty and without missing a detail. 
The inspector would be in a beautiful military uni 
form; he would be respectful, dignified, kindly, the 
perfect gentleman, but steady as the north star to 
the last requirement of his duty. He would make 
Noah tell him where he was born, and how old he 
was, and what religious sect he belonged to, and the 
amount of his income, and the grade and position he 
claimed socially, and the name and style of his oc 
cupation, and how many wives and children he had, 
and how many servants, and the name, sex and 
age of the whole of them; and if he had n t a pass 
port he would be courteously required to get one 
right away. Then he would take up the matter of 
the Ark: 

"What is her length?" 

" Six hundred feet." 

"Depth?" 

"Sixty-five." 

"Beam?" 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 165 

- Fifty or sixty." 
"Built of" 
"Wood." 

-What kind?" 

" Shittim and gopher." 

- Interior and exterior decorations ?" 

- Pitched within and without." 
" Passengers ? " 

" Eight" 
"Sex?" 

" Half male, the others female." 
-Ages?" 

" From a hundred years up." 
" Up to where ?" 
" Six hundred." 

-Ah going to Chicago; good idea, too. Sur 
geon s name ? " 

-We have no surgeon." 

- Must provide a surgeon. Also an undertaker 
particularly the undertaker. These people must 
not be left without the necessities of life at their age. 
Crew ? " 

- The same eight." 
-The same eight?" 

- The same eight." 

- And half of them women ? " 
-Yes, sir." 



1 66 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

" Have they ever served as seamen ? " 

" No, sir." 

"Have the men?" 

"No, sir." 

" Have any of you ever been to sea ? " 

" No, sir." 

" Where were you reared ? " 

"On a farm all of us." 

" This vessel requires a crew of eight hundred 
men, she not being a steamer. You must provide 
them. She must have four mates and nine cooks. 
Who is captain ? " 

" I am, sir." 

" You must get a captain. Also a chambermaid. 
Also sick nurses for the old people. Who designed 
this vessel ? " 

"I did, sir." 

"Is it your first attempt ? " 

"Yes. sir." 

" I partly suspected it. Cargo ? " 

" Animals." 

"Kind?" 

"All kinds." 

"Wild, or tame?" 

"Mainly wild." 

" Foreign, or domestic ?" 

" Mainly foreign." 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 1 67 

44 Principal wild ones ? " 

44 Megatherium, elephant, rhinoceros, lion, tiger, 
wolf, snakes all the wild things of all climes two 
of each." 

44 Securely caged ?" 

44 No, not caged." 

" They must have iron cages. Who feeds and 
waters the menagerie ? " 

44 We do." 

"The old people?" 

44 Yes, sir." 

4 It is dangerous for both. The animals must 
be cared for by a competent force. How many ani 
mals are there ? " 

4&lt; Big ones, seven thousand; big and little to 
gether, ninety-eight thousand." 

4 You must provide twelve hundred keepers. How 
is the vessel lighted ? " 

44 By two Windows." 

44 Where are they ?" 

" Up under the eaves." 

44 Two windows for a tunnel six hundred feet long 
and sixty-five feet deep ? You must put in the elec 
tric light a few arc lights and fifteen hundred in- 
candescents. What do you do in case of leaks ? 
How many pumps have you ? " ^ rtv d ays 
44 None, sir." 



1 68 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

lt You must provide pumps. How do you get 
water for the passengers and the animals ? " 

" We let down the buckets from the windows." 

" It is inadequate. What is your motive power ? " 

" What is my which ?" 

" Motive power. What power do you use in driv 
ing the ship ? " 

"None." 

" You must provide sails or steam. What is the 
nature of your steering apparatus ? " 

" We have n t any." 

" Have n t you a rudder ? " 

"No, sir." 

" How do you steer the vessel ? " 

"We don t." 

" You must provide a rudder, and properly equip 
it. How many anchors have you ? " 

"None." 

" You must provide six. One is not permitted to 
sail a vessel like this without that protection. How 
many life boats have you ? " 

"None, sir." 

" Provide twenty-five. How many life preserv 
ers ? " 

" None." 

" Foreign, er.ovide two thousand. How long are 

" Mainly foreign." &gt;" 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 169 

"Eleven or twelve months." 

" Eleven or twelve months. Pretty slow but you 
will be in time for the Exposition. What is your 
ship sheathed with copper ? " 

" Her hull is bare not sheathed at all." 

" Dear man, the wood-boring creatures of the sea 
would riddle her like a sieve and send her to the 
bottom in three months. She cannot be allowed to 
go away, in this condition; she must be sheathed. 
Just a word more: Have you reflected that Chicago 
is an inland city and not reachable with a vessel like 
this ? " 

"Shecargo? What is Shccargo ? I am not go 
ing to Shecargo." 

" Indeed ? Then may I ask what the animals are 
for ? " 

" Just to breed others from." 

" Others ? Is it possible that you have n t 
enough ?" 

"For the present needs of civilization, yes; but 
the rest are going to be drowned in a flood, and 
these are to renew the supply." 

"A flood ?" 

" Yes, sir." 

"Are you sure of that?" 

" Perfectly sure. It is going to rain forty days and 
forty nights." 



I 70 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

" Give yourself no concern about that, dear sir, it 
often does that, here." 

" Not this kind of rain. This is going to cover the 
mountain tops, and the earth will pass from sight." 

Privately but of course not officially I am 
sorry you revealed this, for it compels me to with 
draw the option I gave you as to sails or steam. I 
must require you to use steam. Your ship cannot 
carry the hundredth part of an eleven-months water- 
supply for the animals. You will have to have con 
densed water." 

" But I tell you I am going to dip water from out 
side with buckets." 

" It will not answer. Before the flood reaches the 
mountain tops the fresh waters will have joined the 
salt seas, and it will all be salt. You must put in 
steam and condense your water. I will now bid you 
good-day, sir. Did I understand you to say that 
this was your very first attempt at ship-building?" 

" My very first, sir, I give you the honest truth. 
I built this Ark without having ever had the slightest 
training or experience or instruction in marine ar 
chitecture." 

" It is a remarkable work, sir, a most remarkable 
work. I consider that it contains more features that 
are new absolutely new and unhackneyed than are 
to be found in any other vessel that swims the seas," 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. I 71 

" This compliment does me infinite honor, dear 
sir, infinite; and I shall cherish the memory of it 
while life shall last. Sir, I offer my duty, and most 
grateful thanks. Adieu !" 

No, the German inspector would be limitlessly 
courteous to Noah, and would make him feel that 
he was among friends, but he would n t let him go 
to sea with that Ark. 

COLUMBUS S CRAFT. 

Between Noah s time and the time of Columbus, 
naval architecture underwent some changes, and 
from being unspeakably bad was improved to a 
point which may be described as less unspeakably 
bad. I have read somewhere, some time or other, 
that one of Columbus s ships was a ninety-ton ves 
sel. By comparing that ship with the ocean grey 
hounds of our time one is able to get down to a com 
prehension of how small that Spanish bark was, and 
how little fitted she would be to run opposition in 
the Atlantic passenger trade to-day. It would take 
seventy-four of her to match the tonnage of the " Ha 
vel" and carry the " Havel s " trip. If I remember 
rightly, it took her ten weeks to make the passage. 
With our ideas this would now be considered an ob 
jectionable gait. She probably had a captain, a 
mate, and a crew consisting of four seamen and a 



I 72 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

boy. The crew of a modern greyhound numbers 
two hundred and fifty persons. 

Coiumbus s ship being small and very old, we 
know that we may draw from these two facts sev 
eral absolute certainties in the way of minor details 
which history has left unrecorded. For instance: 
being small, we know that she rolled and pitched 
and tumbled, in any ordinary sea, and stood on her 
head or her tail, or lay down with her ear in the 
water when storm-seas ran high; also, that she was 
used to having billows plunge aboard and wash her 
decks from stem to stern; also, that the storm-racks 
were on the table all the way over, and that never 
theless a man s soup was oftener landed in his lap 
than in his stomach; also, that the dining-saloon 
was about ten feet by seven, dark, airless, and suffo 
cating with oil-stench; also, that there was only 
about one stateroom the size of a grave with a 
tier of two or three berths in it of the dimensions 
and comfortableness of coffins, and that when the 
light was out, the darkness in there was so thick 
and real that you could bite into it and and chew 
it like gum ; also, that the only promenade was on the 
lofty poop-deck astern (for the ship was shaped like 
a high-quarter shoe) a streak sixteen feet long by 
three feet wide, all the rest of the vessel being littered 
with ropes and flooded by the seas. 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. I 73 

We know all these things to be true, from the 
mere fact that we know the vessel was small. As 
the vessel was old, certain other truths follow, as 
matters of course. For instance : she was full of 
rats; she was full of cockroaches; the heavy seas 
made her seams open and shut like your fingers, 
and she leaked like a basket ; where leakage is, 
there also, of necessity, is bilge water; and where 
bilgewater is, only the dead can enjoy life. This is 
on account of the smell. In the presence of bilge- 
water, Limburger cheese becomes odorless and 
ashamed. 

From these absolutely sure data we can compe 
tently picture the daily life of the great discoverer. 
In the early morning he paid his devotions at the 
shrine of the Virgin. At eight bells he appeared 
on the poop-deck promenade. If the weather was 
chilly he came up clad from plumed helmet to 
spurred heel in magnificent plate armor inlaid with 
arabesques of gold, having previously warmed it at 
the galley fire. If the weather was warm, he came 
up in the ordinary sailor toggery of the time: great 
slouch hat of blue velvet with a flowing brush of 
snowy ostrich plumes, fastened on with a flashing 
cluster of diamonds and emeralds; gold-embroidered 
doublet of green velvet with slashed sleeves expos 
ing under-sleeves of crimson satin; deep collar and 



I 74 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

cuff-ruffles of rich limp lace ; trunk hose of pink 
velvet, with big knee-knots of brocaded yellow rib 
bon; pearl-tinted silk stockings, clocked and dain 
tily embroidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn 
kid, funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the 
pretty stockings; deep gauntlets of finest white her 
etic skin, from the factory of the Holy Inquisition, 
formerly part of the person of a lady of rank; rapier 
with sheath crusted with jewels, and hanging from a 
broad baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires. 

He walked the promenade thoughtfully, he noted 
the aspects of the sky and the course of the wind; 
he kept an eye out for drifting vegetation and other 
signs of land; he jawed the man at the wheel for 
pastime; he got out an imitation egg and kept him 
self in practice on his old trick of making it stand 
on its end; now and then he hove a life-line below 
and fished up a sailor who was drowning on the 
quarter-deck; the rest of his watch he gaped and 
yawned and stretched arid said he would n t make 
the trip again to discover six Americas. For that 
was the kind of natural human person Columbus 
was when not posing for posterity. 

At noon he took the sun and ascertained that the 
good ship had made three hundred yards in twenty- 
four hours, and this enabled him to win the pool. 
Anybody can win the pool when nobody but him- 



ABOUT ALL KIND S OF SHIPS. 175 

self has the privilege of straightening out the ship s 
run and getting it right. 

The Admiral has breakfasted alone, in state: 
bacon, beans, and gin; at noon he dines alone in 
state: bacon, beans, and gin; at six he sups alone 
in state: bacon, beans, and gin; at eleven P.M. he 
takes a night-relish, alone, in state: bacon, beans, 
and gin. At none of these orgies is there any music ; 
the ship-orchestra is modern. After his final meal 
he returned thanks for his many blessings, a little 
over-rating their value, perhaps, and then he laid 
off his silken splendors or his gilded hardware, and 
turned in, in his little coffin-bunk, and blew out his 
flickering stencher and began to refresh his lungs 
with inverted sighs freighted with the rich odors of 
rancid oil and bilgewater. The sighs returned as 
snores, and then the rats and the cockroaches 
swarmed out in brigades and divisions and army 
corps and had a circus all over him. Such was the 
daily life of the great discoverer in his marine basket 
during several historic weeks; and the difference 
between his ship and his comforts and ours is visible 
almost at a glance. 

When he returned, the King of Spain, marveling, 
said as history records: 

"This shipseemstobe leaky. Did she leak badly?" 

" You shall judge for yourself, sire. I pumped 



I 76 ABO UT A LL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

the Atlantic ocean through her sixteen times on the 
passage." 

This is General Horace Porter s account. Other 
authorities say fifteen. 

It can be shown that the differences between that 
ship and the one I am writing these historical con 
tributions in, are in several respects remarkable. 
Take the matter of decoration, for instance. I have 
been looking around again, yesterday and to-day, 
and have noted several details which I conceive to 
have been absent from Columbus s ship, or at least 
slurred over and not elaborated and perfected. I 
observe state-room doors three inches thick, of solid 
oak and polished. I note companionway vestibules 
with walls, doors and ceilings paneled in polished 
hard woods, some light, some dark, all dainty and 
delicate joiner-work, and yet every joint compact 
and tight; with beautiful pictures inserted, com 
posed of blue tiles some of the pictures containing 
as many as sixty tiles and the joinings of those 
tiles perfect. These are daring experiments. One 
would have said that the first time the ship went 
straining and laboring through a storm-tumbled sea 
those tiles would gape apart and drop out. That 
they have not done so is evidence that the joiner s art 
has advanced a good deal since the days when ships 
were so shackly that when a giant sea gave them a 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. \ JJ 

wrench the doors came unbolted. I find the walls of 
the dining-saloon upholstered with mellow pictures 
wrought in tapestry, and the ceiling aglow with 
pictures done in oil. In other places of assembly I 
find great panels filled with embossed Spanish 
leather, the figures rich with gilding and bronze. 
Everywhere I find sumptuous masses of color- 
color, color, color color all about, color of every 
shade and tint and variety; and as a result, the ship 
is bright and cheery to the eye, and this cheeriness 
invades one s spirit and contents it. To fully ap 
preciate the force and spiritual value of this radiant 
and opulent dream of color, one must stand outside 
at night in the pitch dark and the rain, and look in 
through a port, and observe it in the lavish splendor 
of the electric lights. The old-time ships were dull, 
plain, graceless, gloomy, and horribly depressing. 
They compelled the blues; one could not escape 
the blues in them. The modern idea is right: to 
surround the passenger with conveniences, luxuries, 
and abundance of inspiriting color. As a result, the 
ship is the pleasantest place one can be in, except, 
perhaps, one s home. 

A VANISHED SENTIMENT. 

One thing is gone, to return no more forever the 
romance of the sea. Soft sentimentality about the sea 



I 78 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

has retired from the activities of this life, and is 
but a memory of the past, already remote and much 
faded. But within the recollection of men still 
living, it was in the breast of every individual; and 
the further any individual lived from salt water 
the more of it he kept in stock. It was as per 
vasive, as universal, as the atmosphere itself. The 
mere mention of the sea, the romantic sea, would 
make any company of people sentimental and mawk 
ish at once. The great majority of the songs that 
were sung by the young people of the back settle 
ments had the melancholy wanderer for subject and 
his mouthings about the sea for refrain. Picnic par 
ties paddling down a creek in a canoe when the 
twilight shadows were gathering, always sang 

Homeward bound, homeward bound 
From a foreign shore; 

and this was also a favorite in the West with the 
passengers on sternwheel steamboats. There was 
another 

My boat is by the shore 

And my bark is on the sea, 
But before I go, Tom Moore, 
Here s a double health to thee. 

And this one, also 

O, pilot, tis a fearful night, 
There s danger on the deep. 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

And this 

A life on the ocean wave 
And a home on the rolling deep, 

Where the scattered waters rave 
And the winds their revels keep ! 



And this 



A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 
And a wind that follows fair. 

And this 

My foot is on my gallant deck, 
Once more the rover is free ! 

And the " Larboard Watch " the person referred 
to below is at the masthead, or somewhere up there 

O, who can tell what joy he feels, 
As o er the foam his vessel reels, 
And his tired eyelids slumb ring fall, 
He rouses at the welcome call 

Of " Larboard watch ahoy ! " 

Yes, and there was forever and always some jack 
ass-voiced person braying out 

Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
I lay me down in peace to sleep 

Other favorites had these suggestive titles: " The 
Storm at Sea;" " The Bird at Sea;" "The Sailor 



l8o ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

Boy s Dream;" " The Captive Pirate s Lament;" 
" We are far from Home on the Stormy Main " and 
so on, and so on, the list is endless. Everybody on 
a farm lived chiefly amid the dangers of the deep on 
those days, in fancy. 

But all that is gone, now. Not a vestige of it is 
left. The iron-clad, with her unsentimental aspect 
and frigid attention to business, banished romance 
from the war-marine, and the unsentimental steamer 
has banished it from the commercial marine. The 
dangers and uncertainties which made sea life roman 
tic have disappeared and carried the poetic element 
along with them. In our day the passengers never 
sing sea-songs on board a ship, and the band never 
plays them. Pathetic songs about the wanderer in 
strange lands far from home, once so popular and 
contributing such fire and color to the imagination 
by reason of the rarity of that kind of wanderer, 
have lost their charm and fallen silent, because 
everybody is a wanderer in the far lands now, and 
the interest in that detail is dead. Nobody is wor 
ried about the wanderer; there are no perils of the 
sea for him, there are no uncertainties. He is safer 
in the ship than he would probably be at home, for 
there he is always liable to have to attend some 
friend s funeral and stand over the grave in the 
sleet, bareheaded and that means pneumonia for 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 1 8 I 

him, if he gets his deserts; and the uncertainties 
of his voyage are reduced to whether he will arrive 
on the other side in the appointed afternoon, or have 
to wait till morning. 

The first ship I was ever in was a sailing vessel. 
She was twenty-eight days going from San Fran 
cisco to the Sandwich Islands. But the main reason 
for this particularly slow passage was, that she got 
becalmed and lay in one spot fourteen days in the 
centre of the Pacific two thousand miles from land. 
I hear no sea-songs in this present vessel, but I heard 
the entire layout in that one. There were a dozen 
young people they are pretty old now, I reckon 
and they used to group themselves on the stern, in 
the starlight or the moonlight, every evening, and 
sing sea-songs till after midnight, in that hot, silent, 
motionless calm. They had no sense of humor, 
and they always sang " Homeward Bound," with 
out reflecting that that was practically ridiculous, 
since they were standing still and not proceeding 
in any direction at all; and they often followed that 
song with "Are we almost there, are we almost 
there, said the dying girl as she drew near home ? " 
It was a very pleasant company of young people, 
and I wonder where they are now. Gone, oh, none 
knows whither; and the bloom and grace and beauty 
of their youth, where is that ? Among them was a 



1 82 ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 

liar; all tried to reform him, but none could do it. 
And so, gradually, he was left to himself, none of us 
would associate with him. Many a time since, I have 
seen in fancy that forsaken figure, leaning forlorn 
against the taffrail, and have reflected that perhaps 
if we had tried harder, and been more patient, we 
might have won him from his fault and persuaded 
him to relinquish it. But it is hard to tell; with him 
the vice was extreme, and was probably incurable. 
I like to think and indeed I do think that I did 
the best that in me lay to lead him to higher and 
better ways. 

There was a singular circumstance. The ship lay 
becalmed that entire fortnight in exactly the same 
spot. Then a handsome breeze came fanning over 
the sea, and we spread our white wings for flight. 
But the vessel did not budge. The sails bellied out, 
the gale strained at the ropes, but the vessel moved 
not a hair s breadth from her place. The captain 
was surprised. It was some hours before we found 
out what the cause of the detention was. It was 
barnacles. They collect very fast in that part of the 
Pacific. They had fastened themselves to the ship s 
bottom; then others had fastened themselves to the 
first bunch, others to these, and so on, down and 
down and down, and the last bunch had glued the 
column hard and fast to the bottom of the sea, which 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS. 183 

is five miles deep at that point. So the ship was 
simply become the handle of a walking cane five 
miles long yes, and no more movable by wind and 
sail than a continent is. It was regarded by every 
one as remarkable. 

Well, the next week however, Sandy Hook is in 
sight. 



PLAYING COURIER. 

A TIME would come when we must go from 
** Aix-les-Bains to Geneva, and from thence, 
by a series of day-long and tangled journeys, to 
Bayreuth in Bavaria. I should have to have a cou 
rier of course to take care of so considerable a party 
as mine. 

But I procrastinated. The time slipped along, 
and at last I woke up one day to the fact that we 
were ready to move and had no courier. I then re 
solved upon what I felt was a foolhardy thing, but I 
was in the humor of it. I said I would make the 
first stage without help I did it. 

I brought the party from Aix to Geneva by my 
self four people. The distance was two hours and 
more, and there was one change of cars. There 
was not an accident of any kind, except leaving a 
valise and some other matters on the platform, a 
thing which can hardly be called an accident, it is 
so common. So I offered to conduct the party all 

the way to Bayreuth. 

184 



PLAYING COURIER. 



This was a blunder, though it did not seem so at 
the time. There was more detail than I thought 
there would be: i. Two persons whom we had left 
in a Genevan pension some weeks before, must be 
collected and brought to the hotel; 2. I must notify 
the people on the Grand Quay who store trunks to 
bring seven of our stored trunks to the hotel and carry 
back seven which they would find piled in the lobby; 
3- I must find out what part of Europe Bayreuth was 
in and buy seven railway tickets for that point; 4. 
I must send a telegram to a friend in the Nether 
lands; 5. It was now 2 in the afternoon, and we 
must look sharp and be ready for the first night 
train and make sure of sleeping-car tickets; 6. I 
must draw money at the bank. 

It seemed to me that the sleeping-car tickets must 
be the most important thing, so I went to the sta 
tion myself to make sure; hotel messengers are not 
always brisk people. It was a hot day and I ought 
to have driven, but it seemed better economy to 
walk. It did not turn out so, because I lost my way 
and trebled the distance. I applied for the tickets, 
and they asked me which route I wanted to go by, 
and that embarrassed me and made me lose my 
head, there were so many people standing around, 
and I not knowing anything about the routes and 
not supposing there were going to be two; so I 



I 86 PLAYING COURIER. 

judged it best to go back and map out the road and 
come again. 

I took a cab this time, but on my way up stairs at 
the hotel I remembered that I was out of cigars, so 
I thought it would be well to get some while the 
matter was in my mind. It was only round the 
corner and I did n t need the cab. I asked the cab 
man to wait where he was. Thinking of the tele 
gram and trying to word it in my head, I forgot the 
cigars and the cab, and walked on indefinitely. I 
was going to have the hotel people send the tele 
gram, but as I could not be far from the Post Office 
by this time, I thought I would do it myself. But 
it was further than I had supposed. I found the 
place at last and wrote the telegram and handed it 
in. The clerk was a severe-looking, fidgety man, 
and he began to fire French questions at me in such 
a liquid form that I could not detect the joints be 
tween his words, and this made me lose my head 
again. But an Englishman stepped up and said the 
clerk wanted to know where he was to send the tele 
gram. I could not tell him, because it was not my 
telegram, and I explained that I was merely send 
ing it for a member of my party. But nothing would 
pacify the clerk but the address; so I said that if he 
was so particular I would go back and get it. 

However, I thought I would go and collect those 



PLAYING COURIER. 1 87 

lacking two persons first, for it would be best to do 
everything systematically and in order, and one de 
tail at a time. Then I remembered the cab was eat 
ing up my substance down at the hotel yonder; so 
I called another cab and told the man to go down 
and fetch it to the Post Office and wait till I came. 

I had a long hot walk to collect those people, 
and when I got there they could n t come with me 
because they had heavy satchels and must have a 
cab. I went away to find one, but before I ran 
across any I noticed that I had reached the neigh 
borhood of the Grand Quay at least I thought I 
had so I judged I could save time by stepping 
around and arranging about the trunks. I stepped 
around about a mile, and although I did not find 
the Grand Quay, I found a cigar shop, and remem 
bered about the cigars. I said I was going to Bay- 
reuth, and wanted enough for the journey. The 
man asked me which route I was going to take. I 
said I did not know. He said he would recommend 
me to go by Zurich and various other places which 
he named, and offered to sell me seven second-class 
through tickets for $22 apiece, which would be 
throwing off the discount which the railroads al 
lowed him. I was already tired of riding second- 
class on first-class tickets, so I took him up. 

By and by I found Natural & Co. s storage office, 



1 88 PLAYING COURIER. 

and told them to send seven of our trunks to the 
hotel and pile them up in the lobby. It seemed to 
me that I was not delivering the whole of the mes 
sage, still it was all I could find in my head. 

Next I found the bank and asked for some money, 
but I had left my letter of credit somewhere and was 
not able to draw. I remembered now that I must 
have left it lying on the table where I wrote my tel 
egram: so I got a cab and drove to the Post Office 
and went up stairs, and they said that a letter of 
credit had indeed been left on the table, but that it 
was now in the hands of the police authorities, and 
it would be necessary for me to go there and prove 
property. They sent a boy with me, and we went 
out the back way and walked a couple of miles and 
found the place; and then I remembered about my 
cabs, and asked the boy to send them to me when 
he got back to the Post Office. It was nightfall now, 
and the Mayor had gone to dinner. I thought I 
would go to dinner myself, but the officer on duty 
thought differently, and I stayed. The Mayor 
dropped in at half past 10, but said it was too late 
to do anything to-night come at 9:30 in the morn 
ing. The officer wanted to keep me all night, and 
said I was a suspicious-looking person, and prob 
ably did not own the letter of credit, and did n t 
know what a letter of credit was, but merely saw 



PLAYING COURIER. 189 

the real owner leave it lying on the table, and 
wanted to get it because I was probably a person 
that would want anything he could get, whether it 
was valuable or not. But the Mayor said he saw 
nothing suspicious about me, and that I seemed a 
harmless person and nothing the matter with me 
but a wandering mind, and not much of that. So I 
thanked him and he set me free, and I went home 
in my three cabs. 

As I was dog-tired and in no condition to answer 
questions with discretion, I thought I would not dis 
turb the Expedition at that time of night, as there 
was a vacant room I knew of at the other end of 
the hall; but I did not quite arrive there, as a watch 
had been set, the Expedition being anxious about 
me. I was placed in a galling situation. The Expe 
dition sat stiff and forbidding on four chairs in a row, 
with shawls and things all on, satchels and guide 
books in lap. They had been sitting like that for 
four hours, and the glass going down all the time. 
Yes, and they were waiting waiting for me. It 
seemed to me that nothing but a sudden, happily 
contrived, and brilliant tour de force could break 
this iron front and make a diversion in my favor; 
so I shied my hat into the arena and followed it with 
a skip and a jump, shouting blithely: 

" Ha, ha, here we all are, Mr. Merryman ! " 



PLAYING COURIER. 

Nothing could be deeper or stiller than the absence 
of applause which followed. But I kept on; there 
seemed no other way, though my confidence, poor 
enough before, had got a deadly check and was in 
effect gone. 

I tried to be jocund out of a heavy heart, I tried 
to touch the other hearts there and soften the bitter 
resentment in those faces by throwing off bright 
and airy fun and making of the whole ghastly thing 
a joyously humorous incident, but this idea was not 
well conceived. It was not the right atmosphere 
for it. I got not one smile; not one line in those 
offended faces relaxed; I thawed nothing of the win 
ter that looked out of those frosty eyes. I started 
one more breezy, poor effort, but the head of the 
Expedition cut into the centre of it and said: 

" Where have you been ? " 

I saw by the manner of this that the idea was to 
get down to cold business now. So I began my 
travels but was cut short again. 

" Where are the two others ? We have been in 
frightful anxiety about them." 

" Oh, they re all right. I was to fetch a cab. I 
will go straight off, and - 

" Sit down ! Don t you know it is 1 1 o clock? 
Where did you leave them ? " 

" At the pension." 



PLAYING COURIER. 19 j 

" Why didn t you bring them ? " 

" Because we could n t carry the satchels. And so 
I thought " 

" Thought ! You should not try to think. One 
cannot think without the proper machinery. It is 
two miles to that pension. Did you go there with 
out a cab ? " 

" I well I did n t intend to; it only happened so." 

" How did it happen so ? " 

" Because I was at the Post Office and I remem 
bered that I had left a cab waiting here, and so, to 
stop that expense, I sent another cab to to " 

"To what?" 

"Well, I don t remember now, but I think the 
new cab was to have the hotel pay the old cab, and 
send it away." 

" What good would that do ? " 

"What good would it do? It would stop the 
expense, would n t it ? " 

" By putting the new cab in its place to continue 
the expense ? " 

I did n t say anything. 

;i Why did n t you have the new cab come back 
for you ? " 

" Oh, that is what I did. I remember now. Yes, 

that is what I did. Because I recollect that when 
j 



1 92 PLAYING COURIER. 

" Well, then, why did n t it come back for you ? " 

" To the Post Office ? Why, it did." 

" Very well, then, how did you come to walk to 
the pension ? " 

" I I don t quite remember how that happened. 
Oh, yes, I do remember now. I wrote the despatch 
to send to the Netherlands, and- 

" Oh, thank goodness, you did accomplish some 
thing ! I would n t have had you fail to send 
what makes you look like that ! You are trying 
to avoid my eye. That despatch is the most im 
portant thing that You have n t sent that 

despatch ! " 

" I have n t said I did n t send it." 

" You don t need to. Oh, dear, I would n t have 
had that telegram fail for anything. Why did n t 
you send it ? " 

" Well, you see, with so many things to do and 
think of, I they re very particular there, and after 
I had written the telegram 

"Oh, never mind, let it go, explanations can t 
help the matter nowwhat will he think of us ? " 

" Oh, that s all right, that s all right, he 11 think 
we gave the telegram to the hotel people, and that 
they " 

"Why, certainly! Why did n t you do that? 
There was no other rational way." 



PLAYING COURIER. 

" Yes, I know, but then I had it on my mind that 
I must be sure and get to the bank and draw some 
money 

" Well, you are entitled to some credit, after all, 
for thinking of that, and I don t wish to be too hard 
on you, though you must acknowledge yourself 
that you have cost us all a good deal of trouble, 
and some of it not necessary. How much did you 
draw ? " 

"Well, I I had an idea that that " 

"That what?" 

4 That well, it seems to me that in the circum 
stancesso many of us, you know, and and " 

What are you mooning about ? Do turn your 
face this way and let me why, you have n t drawn 
any money ! " 

" Well, the banker said " 

"Never mind what the banker said. You must 
have had a reason of your own. Not a reason, exactly, 

but something which " 

" W T ell, then, the simple fact was that I had n t 
my letter of credit." 

" Had n t your letter of credit ?" 

" Had n t my letter of credit." 

" Don t repeat me like that. Where was it ? " 

" At the Post Office." 

" What was it doing there ? " 



PLAYING COURIER. 

" Well, I forgot it and left it there." 

" Upon my word, I Ve seen a good many couriers, 
but of all the couriers that ever I 

" I Ve done the best I could." 

" Well, so you have, poor thing, and I m wrong 
to abuse you so when you Ve been working your 
self to death while we Ve been sitting here only 
thinking of our vexations instead of feeling grate 
ful for what you were trying to do for us. It will 
all come out right. We can take the 7:30 train 
in the morning just as well. You Ve bought the 
tickets ? " 

" I have and it s a bargain, too. Second class." 

" I m glad of it. Everybody else travels second 
class, and we might just as well save that ruinous 
extra charge. What did you pay ?" 

"Twenty-two dollars apiece through to Bay- 
reuth." 

"Why, I did n t know you could buy through 
tickets anywhere but in London and Paris." 

"Some people can t, maybe; but some people 
can of whom I am one of which, it appears." 

" It seems a rather high price." 

" On the contrary, the dealer knocked off his com 
mission." 

"Dealer ?" 

" Yes I bought them at a cigar shop." 



PLAYING COURIER. 



195 



"That reminds me. We shall have to get up 
pretty early, and so there should be no packing to 
do. Your umbrella, your rubbers, your cigars 
what is the matter ?" 

" Hang it, I Ve left the cigars at the bank." 

"Just think of it! Well, your umbrella?" 

" I 11 have that all right. There s no hurry." 

" What do you mean by that ?" 

" Oh, that s all right; I 11 take care of 

"Where is that umbrella ?" 

" It s just the merest step it won t take me 

"Where is it?" 

" Well, I think I left it at the cigar shop; but any 
way 

" Take your feet out from under that thing. It s 
just as I expected ! Where are your rubbers ? " 

"They well- 

" Where are your rubbers ?" 

"It s got so dry now well, everybody says 
there s not going to be another drop of 

" Where are your rubbers ?" 

" Well, you see well, it was this way. First, the 
officer said 

"What officer?" 

"Police officer; but the Mayor, he " 

"What Mayor ?" 

" Mayor of Geneva; but I said " 



196 PLAYING COURIER. 

" Wait. What is the matter with you ?" 

"Who, me ? Nothing. They both tried to per 
suade me to stay, and 

"Stay where ?" 

"Well the fact is 

" Where have you been ? What s kept you out 
till half-past ten at night? " 

" O, you see, after I lost my letter of credit, I " 

" You are beating around the bush a good deal. 
Now, answer the question in just one straightfor 
ward word. Where are those rubbers ? " 

" They well; they re in the county jail." 

I started a placating smile, but it petrified. The 
climate was unsuitable. Spending three or four hours 
in jail did not seem to the expedition humorous. 
Neither did it to me, at bottom. 

I had to explain the whole thing, and of course it 
came out then that we could n t take the early train, 
because that would leave my letter of credit in hock 
still. It did look as if we had all got to go to bed 
estranged and unhappy, but by good luck that was 
prevented. There happened to be mention of the 
trunks, and I was able to say I had attended to that 
feature. 

" There, you are just as good and thoughtful and 
painstaking and intelligent as you can be, and it s a 
shame to find so much fault with you, and there 



PL A YING CO URIER. I g 7 

sha n t be another word of it. You Ve done beauti 
fully, admirably, and I m sorry I ever said one un 
grateful word to you." 

This hit deeper than some of the other things and 
made me uncomfortable, because I was n t feeling 
as solid about that trunk errand as I wanted to. 
There seemed somehow to be a defect about it 
somewhere, though I could n t put my finger on 
it, and did n t like to stir the matter just now, it 
being late and maybe well enough to let well 
enough alone. 

Of course there was music in the morning, when 
it was found that we could n t leave by the early 
train. But I had no time to wait; I got only the 
opening bars of the overture, and then started out 
to get my letter of credit. 

It seemed a good time to look into the trunk 
business and rectify it if it needed it, and I had a 
suspicion that it did. I was too late. The con 
cierge said he had shipped the trunks to Zurich the 
evening before. I asked him how he could do that 
without exhibiting passage tickets. 

" Not necessary in Switzerland. You pay for your 
trunks and send them where you please. Nothing 
goes free but your hand baggage." 

" How much did you pay on them ? " 

" A hundred and forty francs." 



198 PLAYING COURIER. 

" Twenty-eight dollars. There s something wrong 
about that trunk business, sure." 

Next I met the porter. He said: 

"You have not slept well, is it not. You have 
the worn look. If you would like a courier, a good 
one has arrived last night, and is not engaged for 
five days already, by the name of Ludi. We recom 
mend him; dass heiss, the Grande Hotel Beau Ri- 
vage recommends him." 

I declined with coldness. My spirit was not 
broken yet. And I did not like having my condi 
tion taken notice of in this way. I was at the coun 
ty jail by 9 o clock, hoping that the Mayor might 
chance to come before his regular hour; but he did 
n t. It was dull there. Every time I offered to touch 
anything, or look at anything, or do anything, or 
refrain from doing anything, the policeman said it 
was " defendu." I thought I would practise my 
French on him, but he would n t have that either. 
It seemed to make him particularly bitter to hear his 
own tongue. 

The Mayor came at last, and then there was no 
trouble; for the minute he had convened the Su 
preme Court which they always do whenever there 
is valuable property in dispute and got everything 
shipshape and sentries posted, and had prayer, by 
the chaplain, my unsealed letter was brought and 



PLAYING COURIER. 1 99 

opened, and there was n t anything in it but some 
photographs: because, as I remembered now, I had 
taken out the letter of credit so as to make room for 
the photographs, and had put the letter in my other 
pocket, which I proved to everybody s satisfaction 
by fetching it out and showing it with a good deal 
of exultation. So then the court looked at each 
other in a vacant kind of way, and then at me, and 
then at each other again, and finally let me go, but 
said it was imprudent for me to be at large, and 
asked me what my profession was. I said I was a 
courier. They lifted up their eyes in a kind of 
reverent way and said, 4t Du lieber Gott ! " and I said 
a word of courteous thanks for their apparent ad 
miration and hurried off to the bank. 

However, being a courier was already making me 
a great stickler for order and system and one thing 
at a time and each thing in its own proper turn; so 
I passed by the bank and branched off and started 
for the two lacking members of the expedition. A 
cab lazied by and I took it upon persuasion. I gained 
no speed by this, but it was a reposeful turnout and 
I liked reposefulness. The week-long jubilations 
over the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of 
Swiss liberty and the Signing of the Compact was 
at flood tide, and all the streets were clothed in 
fluttering flags. 



200 PLAYING COURIER. 

The horse and the driver had been drunk three 
days and nights, and had known no stall nor bed 
meantime. They looked as I felt dreamy and 
seedy. But we arrived in course of time. I went 
in and rang, and asked a housemaid to rush out the 
lacking members. She said something which I did 
not understand, and I returned to the chariot. The 
girl had probably told me that those people did not 
belong on her floor, and that it would be judicious 
for me to go higher, and ring from floor to floor till 
I found them; for in those Swiss flats there does not 
seem to be any way to find the right family but to 
be patient and guess your way along up. I calcu 
lated that I must wait fifteen minutes, there being 
three details inseparable from an occasion of this 
sort: i, put on hats and come down and climb in; 
2, return of one to get "my other glove;" 3, pres 
ently, return of the other one to fetch " my French 
Verbs at a Glance." I would muse during the fifteen 
minutes and take it easy. 

A very still and blank interval ensued, and then 
I felt a hand on my shoulder and started. The in 
truder was a policeman. I glanced up and per 
ceived that there was new scenery. There was a 
good deal of a crowd, and they had that pleased 
and interested look which such a crowd wears when 
they see that somebody is out of luck, The horse 



PLAYING COURIER. 2OI 

was asleep, and so was the driver, and some boys 
had hung them and me full of gaudy decorations 
stolen from the innumerable banner poles. It was 
a scandalous spectacle. The officer said: 

" I m sorry, but we can t have you sleeping here 
all day." 

I was wounded and said with dignity: 
"I beg your pardon, I was .not sleeping; I was 
thinking." 

" Well, you can think if you want to, but you Ve 
got to think to yourself; you disturb the whole 
neighborhood." 

It was a poor joke, and it made the crowd laugh. 
I snore at night sometimes, but it is not likely that I 
would do such a thing in the daytime and in such a 
place. The officer undecorated us, and seemed sorry 
for our friendlessness, and really tried to be humane, 
but he said we must n t stop there any longer or he 
would have to charge us rent it was the law, he said, 
and he went on to say in a sociable way that I was 
looking pretty mouldy, and he wished he knew 

I shut him off pretty austerely, and said I hoped 
one might celebrate a little, these days, especially 
when one was personally concerned. 

" Personally ? " he asked. " How ? " 

" Because 600 years ago an ancestor of mine signed 
the compact. 1 



2O2 PLAYING COURIER. 

He reflected a moment, then looked me over and 
said: 

" Ancestor ! It s my opinion you signed it your 
self. For of all the old ancient relics that ever I 
but never mind about that. What is it you are 
waiting here for so long ? " 

I said: 

" I m not waiting here so long at all. I m waiting 
fifteen minutes till they forget a glove and a book 
and go back and get them." Then I told him who 
they were that I had come for. 

He was very obliging, and began to shout inqui 
ries to the tiers of heads and shoulders projecting 
from the windows above us. Then a woman away 
up there sung out: 

II Oh, they ? Why I got them a cab and they left 
here long ago half-past 8, I should say." 

It was annoying. I glanced at my watch, but 
did n t say anything. The officer said: 

" It is a quarter of 12, you see. You should have 
inquired better. You have been asleep three-quar 
ters of an hour, and in such a sun as this. You are 
baked baked black. It is wonderful. And you 
will miss your train, perhaps. You interest me 
greatly. What is your occupation ? " 

I said I was a courier. It seemed to stun him, 
and before he could come to we were gone. 



PL A YING COURIER. 



203 



When I arrived in the third story of the hotel I 
found our quarters vacant. I was not surprised. 
The moment a courier takes his eye off his tribe 
they go shopping. The nearer it is to train time 
the surer they are to go. I sat down to try and 
think out what I had best do next, but presently the 
hall boy found me there, and said the expedition 
had gone to the station half an hour before. It was 
the first time I had known them to do a rational 
thing, and it was very confusing. This is one of 
the things that make a courier s life so difficult and 
uncertain. Just as matters are going the smooth 
est, his people will strike a lucid interval, and down 
go all his arrangements to wreck and ruin. 

The train was to leave at 12 noon sharp. It was 
now ten minutes after 12. I could be at the station 
in ten minutes. I saw I had no great amount of lee 
way, for this was the lightning express, and on the 
Continent the lightning expresses are pretty fastidi 
ous about getting away some time during the adver 
tised day. My people were the only ones remaining 
in the waiting room ; everybody else had passed 
through and "mounted the train," as they say in 
those regions. They were exhausted with nervous 
ness and fret, but I comforted them and heartened 
them up, and we made our rush. 

But no; we were out of luck again. The door- 



2O4 PLA YING COURIER. 

keeper was not satisfied with the tickets. He ex 
amined them cautiously, deliberately, suspiciously; 
then glared at me awhile, and after that he called 
another official. The two examined the tickets and 
called another official. These called others, and the 
convention discussed and discussed, and gesticulated 
and carried on until I begged that they would consider 
how time was flying, and just pass a few resolutions 
and let us go. Then they said very courteously that 
there was a defect in the tickets, and asked me 
where I got them. 

I judged I saw what the trouble was, now. You 
see, I had bought the tickets in a cigar shop, and of 
course the tobacco smell was on them ; without 
doubt the thing they were up to was to work the 
tickets through the Custom House and to collect 
duty on that smell. So I resolved to be perfectly 
frank; it is sometimes the best way. I said: 

"Gentlemen, I will not deceive you. These rail 
way tickets 

" Ah, pardon, monsieur ! These are not railway 
tickets." 

" Oh," I said, "is that the defect ?" 

" Ah, truly yes, monsieur. These are lottery 
tickets, yes ; and it is a lottery which has been 
drawn two years ago." 

I affected to be greatly amused ; it is all one 



PLAYING COURIER. 2O5 

can do in such circumstances ; it is all one can 
do, and yet there is no value in it; it deceives no 
body, and you can see that everybody around pities 
you and is ashamed of you. One of the hardest sit 
uations in life, I think, is to be full of grief and a 
sense of defeat and shabbiness that way, and yet 
have to put on an outside of archness and gaiety, 
while all the time you know that your own expedi 
tion, the treasures of your heart, and whose love and 
reverence you are by the custom of our civilization 
entitled to, are being consumed with humiliation 
before strangers to see you earning and getting a 
compassion, which is a stigma, a brand a brand 
which certifies you to be oh, anything and every 
thing which is fatal to human respect. 

I said cheerily, it was all right, just one of those 
little accidents that was likely to happen to any 
body I would have the right tickets in two min 
utes, and we would catch the train yet, and, more 
over, have something to laugh about all through 
the journey. I did get the tickets in time, all 
stamped and complete, but then it turned out that 
I could n t take them, because in taking so much 
pains about the two missing members, I had skipped 
the bank and had n t the money. So then the train 
left, and there did n t seem to be anything to do but 
go back to the hotel, which we did; but it was kind 



2O6 PLAYING COURIER. 

of melancholy and not much said. I tried to start 
a few subjects, like scenery and transubstantiation, 
and those sorts of things, but they did n t seem to 
hit the weather right. 

We had lost our good rooms, but we got some 
others which were pretty scattering, but would 
answer. I judged things would brighten now, but 
the Head of the Expedition said "Send up the 
trunks." It made me feel pretty cold. There 
was a doubtful something about that trunk busi 
ness. I was almost sure of it. I was going to 
suggest- 
But a wave of the hand sufficiently restrained me, 
and I was informed that we would now camp for 
three days and see if we could rest up. 

I said all right, never mind ringing; I would go 
down and attend to the trunks myself. I got a cab 
and went straight to Mr. Charles Natural s place, 
and asked what order it was I had left there. 
" To send seven trunks to the hotel." 
" And were you to bring any back ? " 
"No." 

" You are sure I did n t tell you to bring back 
seven that would be found piled in the lobby ? " 
"Absolutely sure you did n t." 
"Then the whole fourteen are gone to Zurich 
or Jericho or somewhere, and there is going to be 



PL A YING CO VRIER. 2OJ 

more debris around that hotel when the Expedi 
tion " 

I did n t finish, because my mind was getting to 
be in a good deal of a whirl, and when you are that 
way you think you have finished a sentence when 
you have n t, and you go mooning and dreaming 
away, and the first thing you know you get run 
over by a dray or a cow or something. 

I left the cab there I forgot it and on my way 
back I thought it all out and concluded to resign, 
because otherwise I should be nearly sure to be dis 
charged. But I did n t believe it would be a good 
idea to resign in person; I could do it by message. 
So I sent for Mr. Ludi and explained that there was 
a courier going to resign on account of incompati 
bility or fatigue or something, and as he had four 
or five vacant days, I would like to insert him 
into that vacancy if he thought he could fill it. 
When everything was arranged I got him to go up 
and say to the Expedition that, owing to an error 
made by Mr. Natural s people, we were out of 
trunks here, but would have plenty in Zurich, and 
we d better take the first train, freight, gravel, or 
construction, and move right along. 

He attended to that and came down with an invi 
tation for me to go up yes, certainly; and, while 
we walked along over to the bank to get money, 



2OS PLAYING COURIER 

and collect my cigars and tobacco, and to the cigar 
shop to trade back the lottery tickets and get my 
umbrella, and to Mr. Natural s to pay that cab and 
send it away, and to the county jail to get my rub 
bers and leave p. p. c. cards for the Mayor and Su 
preme Court, he described the weather to me that 
was prevailing on the upper levels there with the 
Expedition, and I saw that I was doing very well 
where I was. 

I stayed out in the woods till 4 P. M., to let the 
weather moderate, and then turned up at the station 
just in time to take the 3 o clock express for Zurich 
along with the Expedition, now in the hands of 
Ludi, who conducted its complex affairs with little 
apparent effort or inconvenience. 

Well, I had worked like a slave while I was in 
office, and done the very best I knew how; yet all 
that these people dwelt upon or seemed to care to 
remember was the defects of my administration, 
not its creditable features. They would skip over 
a thousand creditable features to remark upon and 
reiterate and fuss about just one fact, till it seemed 
to me they would wear it out; and not much of a 
fact, either, taken by itself the fact that I elected 
myself courier in Geneva, and put in work enough 
to carry a circus to Jerusalem, and yet never even 
got my gang out of the town. I finally said I did n t 



PLAYING COURIER. 209 

wish to hear any more about the subject, it made 
me tired. And I told them to their faces that I 
would never be a courier again to save anybody s 
life. And if I live long enough I 11 prove it. I 
think it s a difficult, brain racking, overworked, and 
thoroughly ungrateful office, and the main bulk of 
its wages is a sore heart and a bruised spirit 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO 

T FEEL lost, in Berlin. It has no resemblance 
-- to the city I had supposed it was. There was 
once a Berlin which I would have known, from de 
scriptions in books the Berlin of the last century 
and the beginning of the present one: a dingy city 
in a marsh, with rough streets, muddy and lantern- 
lighted, dividing straight rows of ugly houses all 
alike, compacted into blocks as square and plain 
and uniform and monotonous and serious as so many 
dry-goods boxes. But that Berlin has disappeared. 
It seems to have disappeared totally, and left no 
sign. The bulk of the Berlin of to-day has about 
it no suggestion of a former period. The site it 
stands on has traditions and a history, but the city 
itself has no traditions and no history. It is a new 
city; the newest I have ever seen. Chicago would 
seem venerable beside it; for there many old-look 
ing districts in Chicago, but not many in Berlin. 
The main mass of the city looks as if it had been 

2IO 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 211 

built last week, the rest of it has a just perceptibly 
graver tone, and looks as if it might be six or even 
eight months old. 

The next feature that strikes one is the spacious 
ness, the roominess of the city. There is no other 
city, in any country, whose streets are so generally 
wide. Berlin is not merely a city of wide streets, it 
is the city of wide streets. As a wide-street city it 
has never had its equal, in any age of the world. 
" Unter den Linden" is three streets in one; the 
Potsdamerstrasse is bordered on both sides by side 
walks which are themselves wider than some of the 
historic thoroughfares of the old European capitals; 
there seem to be no lanes or alleys; there are no 
short-cuts; here and there, where several important 
streets empty into a common centre, that centre s 
circumference is of a magnitude calculated to bring 
that word spaciousness into your mind again. The 
park in the middle of the city is so huge that it calls 
up that expression once more. 

The next feature that strikes one is the straight- 
ness of the streets. The short ones have n t so much 
as a waver in them; the long ones stretch out to 
prodigious distances and then tilt a little to the 
right or left, then stretch out on another immense 
reach as straight as a ray of light. A result of this 
arrangement is, that at night Berlin is an inspiring 



212 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

sight to see. Gas and the electric light are employed 
with a wasteful liberality, and so, wherever one goes, 
he has always double ranks of brilliant lights stretch 
ing far down into the night on every hand, with 
here and there a wide and splendid constellation of 
them spread out over an intervening " Platz;" and 
between the interminable double procession of street 
lamps one has the swarming and darting cab lamps, 
a lively and pretty addition to the fine spectacle, 
for they counterfeit the rush and confusion and 
sparkle of an invasion of fire-flies. 

There is one other noticeable feature the abso 
lutely level surface of the site of Berlin. Berlin to 
capitulate is newer to the eye than is any other 
city and also blonder of complexion and tidier; no 
other city has such an air of roominess, freedom 
from crowding; no other city has so many straight 
streets; and with Chicago it contests the chromo 
for flatness of surface and for phenomenal swiftness 
of growth. Berlin is the European Chicago. The 
two cities have about the same population say a 
million and a half. I cannot speak in exact terms, 
because I only know what Chicago s population was 
week before last; but at that time it was about a mil 
lion and a half. Fifteen years ago Berlin and Chi 
cago were large cities, of course, but neither of them 
was the giant it now is. 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 213 

But now the parallels fail. Only parts of Chicago 
are stately and beautiful, whereas all of Berlin is 
stately and substantial, and it is not merely in parts 
but uniformly beautiful. There are buildings in Chi 
cago that are architecturally finer than any in Ber 
lin, I think, but what I have just said above is still 
true. These two flat cities would lead the world 
for phenomenal good health if London were out of 
the way. As it is, London leads, by a point or two. 
Berlin s death rate is only nineteen in the thousand. 
Fourteen years ago the rate was a third higher. 

Berlin is a surprise in a great many ways in a 
multitude of ways, to speak strongly and be exact. 
It seems to be the most governed city in the world, 
but one must admit that it also seems to be the best 
governed. Method and system are observable on 
every hand in great things, in little things, in all 
details, of whatsoever size. And it is not method 
and system on paper, and there an end it is method 
and system in practice. It has a rule for every 
thing, and puts the rule in force; puts it in force 
against the poor and powerful alike, without favor 
or prejudice. It deals with great matters and minute 
particulars with equal faithfulness, and with a plod 
ding and pains - taking diligence and persistency 
which compel admiration and sometimes reret 

&gt; 

There are several taxes, and they are collected 



214 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

quarterly. Collected is the word; they are not 
merely levied, they are collected every time. This 
makes light taxes. It is in cities and countries where 
a considerable part of the community shirk pay 
ment that taxes have to be lifted to a burdensome 
rate. Here the police keep coming, calmly and 
patiently until you pay your tax. They charge you 
five or ten cents per visit, after the first call. By 
experiment you will find that they will presently 
collect that money. 

In one respect the million and a half of Berlin s 
population are like a family: the head of this large 
family knows the names of its several members, and 
where the said members are located, and when and 
where they were born, and what they do for a liv 
ing, and what their religious brand is. Whoever 
comes to Berlin must furnish these particulars to 
the police immediately; moreover, if he knows how 
long he is going to stay, he must say so. If he take 
a house he will be taxed on the rent and taxed also 
on his income. He will not be asked what his in 
come is, and so he may save some lies for home con 
sumption. The police will estimate his income from 
the house-rent he pays, and tax him on that basis. 

Duties on imported articles are collected wi h 
inflexible fidelity, be the sum large or little; but 
the methods are gentle, prompt, and full of the spirit 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 215 

of accommodation. The postman attends to the 
whole matter for you, in cases where the article 
comes by mail, and you have no trouble and suffer 
no inconvenience. The other day a friend of mine 
was informed that there was a package in the post- 
office for him, containing a lady s silk belt with gold 
clasp, and a gold chain to hang a bunch of keys on. 
In his first agitation he was going to try to bribe the 
postman to chalk it through, but acted upon his sober 
second thought and allowed the matter to take its 
proper and regular course. In a little while the 
postman brought the package and made these sev 
eral collections: duty on the silk belt, 7^ cents; 
duty on the gold chain, 10 cents; charge for fetch 
ing the package, 5 cents. These devastating im 
posts are exacted for the protection of German home 
industries. 

The calm, quiet, courteous, cussed persistence of 
the police is the most admirable thing I have en 
countered on this side. They undertook to persuade 
me to send and get a passport for a Swiss maid whom 
we had brought with us, and at the end of six weeks 
of patient, tranquil, angelic daily effort they suc 
ceeded. I was not intending to give them trouble, 
but I was lazy and I thought they would get tired. 
Meanwhile they probably thought I would be the 
one. It turned out just so. 



2l6 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

One is not allowed to build unstable, unsafe or 
unsightly houses in Berlin; the result is this comely 
and conspicuously stately city, with its security from 
conflagrations and break-downs. It is built of archi 
tectural Gibraltars. The Building Commissioners 
inspect while the building is going up. It has been 
found that this is better than to wait till it fall s down. 
These people are full of whims. 

One is not allowed to cram poor folk into cramped 
and dirty tenement houses. Each individual must 
have just so many cubic feet of room-space, and 
sanitary inspections are systematic and frequent. 

Everything is orderly. The fire brigade march 
in rank, curiously uniformed, and so grave is their 
demeanor that they look like a Salvation Army 
under conviction of sin. People tell me that when 
a fire alarm is sounded, the firemen assemble calmly, 
answer to their names when the roll is called, then 
proceed to the fire. There they are ranked up, mil 
itary fashion, and told orTin detachments by the chief, 
who parcels out to the detachments the several parts 
of the work which they are to undertake in putting 
out that fire. This is all done with low-voiced pro 
priety, and strangers think these people are working 
a funeral, As a rule the fire is confined to a single 
floor in these great masses of bricks and masonry, 
and consequently there is little or no interest at- 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 21 J 

taching to a fire here for the rest of the occupants 
of the house. 

There are abundance of newspapers in Berlin, and 
there was also a newsboy, but he died. At intervals 
of half a mile on the thoroughfares there are booths, 
and it is at these that you buy your papers. There 
are plenty of theatres, but they do not advertise in 
a loud way. There are no big posters of any kind, 
and the display of vast type and of pictures of act 
ors and performance framed on a big scale and done 
in rainbow colors is a thing unknown. If the big 
show-bills existed there would be no place to ex 
hibit them; for there are no poster-fences, and one 
would not be allowed to disfigure dead walls with 
them. Unsightly things are forbidden here; Ber 
lin is a rest to the eye. 

And yet the saunterer can easily find out what 
is going on at the theatres. All over the city, at 
short distances apart, there are neat round pillars 
eighteen feet high and about as thick as a hogs 
head, and on these the little black and white 
theatre bills and other notices are posted. One 
generally finds a group around each pillar read 
ing these things. There are plenty of things in 
Berlin worth importing to America. It is these 
that I have particularly wished to make a note 
of, When Buffalo Bill was here his biggest poster 



2l8 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

was probably not larger than the top of an ordinary 
trunk. 

There is a multiplicity of clean and comfortable 
horse-cars, but whenever you think you know where a 
car is going to, you would better stop ashore, because 
that car is not going to that place at all. The car- 
routes are marvelously intricate, and often the driv 
ers get lost and are not heard of for years. The 
signs on the cars furnish no details as to the course 
of the journey; they name the end of it, and then 
experiment around to see how much territory they 
can cover before they get there. The conductor 
will collect your fare over again, every few miles, 
and give you a ticket which he has n t apparently 
kept any record of, and you keep it till an inspector 
comes aboard by and by and tears a corner off it 
(which he does not keep,) then you throw the ticket 
away and get ready to buy another. Brains are of 
no value when you are trying to navigate Berlin in 
a horse car. When the ablest of Brooklyn s editors 
was here on a visit he took a horse car in the early 
morning and wore it out trying to go to a point in 
the centre of the city. He was on board all day and 
spent many dollars in fares, and then did not arrive 
at the place which he had started to go to. This is 
the most thorough way to see Berlin, but it is also 
the most expensive. 




THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

But there are excellent features about the car sys 
tem, nevertheless. The car will not stop for you to 
get on or off, except at certain places a block or two 
apart where there is a sign to indicate that that is 
a halting station. This system saves many bones. 
There are twenty places inside the car; when these 
seats are filled, no more can enter. Four or five 
persons may stand on each platform the law de 
crees the number and when these standing places 
are all occupied the next applicant is refused. As 
there is no crowding, and as no rowdyism is allowed, 
women stand on the platforms as well as men; they 
often stand there when there are vacant seats inside, 
for these places are comfortable, there being little 
or no jolting. A native tells me that when the first 
car was put on, thirty or forty years ago, the public 
had such a terror of it that they did n t feel safe in 
side of it or outside either. They made the com 
pany keep a man at every crossing with a red flag 
in his hand. Nobody would travel in the car except 
convicts on the way to the gallows. This made 
business in only one direction, and the car had to 
go back light. To save the company, the city gov 
ernment transferred the convict cemetery to the 
other end of the line. This made traffic in both 
directions and kept the company from going under. 
This sounds like some of the information which trav- 



22O THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

eling foreigners are furnished with in America. To 
my mind it has a doubtful ring about it. 

The first-class cab is neat and trim, and has leather- 
cushion seats and a swift horse. The second-class 
cab is an ugly and lubberly vehicle, and is always 
old. It seems a strange thing that they have never 
built any new ones. Still, if such a thing were done 
everybody that had time to flock would flock to see 
it, and that would make a crowd, and the police do 
not like crowds and disorder here. If there were an 
earthquake in Berlin the police would take charge 
of it and conduct it in that sort of orderly way that 
would make you think it was a prayer meeting. 
That is what an earthquake generally ends in, but 
this one would be different from those others; it 
Avould be kind of soft and self-contained, like a re 
publican praying for a mugwump. 

For a course (a quarter of an hour or less), one 
pays twenty-five cents in a first-class cab. and fifteen 
cents in a second-class. The first-class will take 
you along faster, for the second-class horse is old 
always old as old as his cab, some authorities say 
and ill-fed and weak. He has been a first-class 
once, but has been degraded to second-class for 
long and faithful service. 

Still, he must take you as far for 15 cents as the 
other horse takes you for 25. If he can t do his fif- 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 221 

teen-minute distance in 15 minutes, he must still do 
the distance for the 15 cents. Any stranger can 
check the distance off by means of the most curi 
ous map I am acquainted with. It is issued by the 
city government and can be bought in any shop for 
a trifle. In it every street is sectioned off like a 
string of long beads of different colors. Each long 
bead represents a minute s travel, and when you have 
covered fifteen of the beads you have got your money s 
worth. This map of Berlin is a gay-colored maze, and 
looks like pictures of the circulation of the blood. 

The streets are very clean. They are kept so 
not by prayer and talk and the other New York 
methods, but by daily and hourly work with scrap 
ers and brooms; and when an asphalted street has 
been tidily scraped after a rain or a light snowfall, 
they scatter clean sand over it. This saves some of 
the horses from falling down. In fact this is a city 
government which seems to stop at no expense 
where the public convenience, comfort and health 
are concerned except in one detail. That is the 
naming of the streets and the numbering of the 
houses. Sometimes the name of a street will change 
in the middle of a block. You will not find it out 
till you get to the next corner and discover the new 
name on the wall, and of course you don t know 
just when the change happened. 



222 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

The names are plainly marked on the corners 
on all the corners there are no exceptions. But 
the numbering of the houses there has never been 
anything like it since original chaos. It is not pos 
sible that it was done by this wise city government. 
At first one thinks it was done by an idiot; but 
there is too much variety about it for that; an idiot 
could not think of so many different ways of making 
confusion and propagating blasphemy. The num 
bers run up one side the street and down the other. 
That is endurable, but the rest is n t. They often 
use one number for three or four houses and some 
times they put the number on only one of the 
houses and let you guess at the others. Sometimes 
they put a number on a house 4, for instance then 
put 4&lt;7, 4^, 4c on the succeeding houses, and one 
becomes old and decrepit before he finally arrives 
at 5. A result of this systemless system is, that 
when you are at No. I in a street, you have n t any 
idea howfarit maybe to No. 150; it maybe only six or 
eight blocks, it may be a couple of miles. Frederick 
street is long, and is one of the great thoroughfares. 
The other day a man put up his money behind the 
assertion that there were more refreshment-places 
in that street than numbers on the houses and he 
won. There were 254 numbers and 257 refreshment- 
places. Yet as I have said, it is a long street. 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 22$ 

But the worst feature of all this complex business 
is, that in Berlin the numbers do not travel in any 
one direction; no, they travel along until they get 
to 50 or 60, .perhaps, then suddenly you find your 
self up in the hundreds 140, maybe; the next will 
be 139 then you perceive by that sign that the 
numbers are now traveling toward you from the 
opposite direction. They will keep that sort of 
insanity up as long as you travel that street; every 
now and then the numbers will turn and run the 
other way. As a rule there is an arrow under the 
number, to show by the direction of its flight which 
way the numbers are proceeding. There are a good 
many suicides in Berlin; I have seen six reported 
in a single day. There is always a deal of learned 
and laborious arguing and ciphering going on as to 
the cause of this state of things. If they will set to 
work and number their houses in a rational way 
perhaps they will find out what was the matter. 

More than a month ago Berlin began to prepare 
to celebrate Professor Virchow s seventieth birthday. 
When the birthday arrived, the middle of October, 
it seemed to me that all the world of science arrived 
with it; deputation after deputation came, bringing 
the homage- and reverence of far cities and centres 
of learning, and during the whole of a long day the 
hero of it sat and received such witness of his great- 



224 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

ness as has seldom been vouchsafed to any man in 
any walk of life in any time ancient or modern. 
These demonstrations were continued in one form 
or another day after day, and were presently merged 
in similar demonstrations to his twin in science and 
achievement, Professor Helmholtz, whose seventieth 
birthday is separated from Virchow s, by only about 
three weeks; so nearly as this did these two ex 
traordinary men come to being born together. Two 
such births have seldom signalized a single year in 
human history. 

But perhaps the final and closing demonstration 
was peculiarly grateful to them. This was a Com- 
mers given in their honor the other night, by 1,000 
students. It was held in a huge hall, very long and 
very lofty, which had five galleries, far above every 
body s head, which were crowded with ladies four 
or five hundred, I judged. 

It was beautifully decorated with clustered flags 
and various ornamental devices, and was brilliantly 
lighted. On the spacious floor of this place were 
ranged, in files, innumerable tables, seating twenty- 
four persons each, extending from one end of the 
great hall clear to the other and with narrow aisles 
between the files. In the centre on one side was a 
high and tastefully decorated platform twenty or 
thirty feet long, with a long table on it behind 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 22$ 

which sat the half dozen chiefs of the givers of the 
Commers in the rich mediaeval costumes of as many 
different college corps. Behind these youths a band 
of musicians was concealed. On the floor directly 
in front of this platform were half a dozen tables 
which were distinguished from the outlying conti 
nent of tables by being covered instead of left naked. 
Of these the central table was reserved for the two 
heroes of the occasion and twenty particularly emi 
nent professors of the Berlin University, and the 
other covered tables were for the occupancy of a 
hundred less distinguished professors. 

I was glad to be honored with a place at the table 
of the two heroes of the occasion, although I was 
not really learned enough to deserve it. Indeed 
there was a pleasant strangeness in being in such 
company; to be thus associated with twenty-three 
men who forget more every day than I ever knew. 
Yet there was nothing embarrassing about it, be 
cause loaded men and empty ones look about alike, 
and I knew that to that multitude there I was a pro 
fessor. It required but little art to catch the ways 
and attitude of those men and imitate them, and I 
had no difficulty in looking as much like a professor 
as anybody there. 

We arrived early; so early that only Professors 
Virchow and Helmholtz and a dozen guests of the 



226 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

special tables were ahead of us, and 300 or 400 stu 
dents. But people were arriving in floods, now, and 
within fifteen minutes all but the special tables were 
occupied and the great house was crammed, the 
aisles included. It was said that there were 4,000 
men present. It was a most animated scene, there 
is no doubt about that; it was a stupendous beehive. 
At each end of each table stood a corps student in 
the uniform of his corps. These quaint costumes 
are of brilliant colored silks and velvets, with some 
times a high plumed hat, sometimes a broad Scotch 
cap, with a great plume wound about it, sometimes 
oftenest a little shallow silk cap on the tip of the 
crown, like an inverted saucer; sometimes the panta 
loons are snow-white, sometimes of other colors; the 
boots in all cases come up well above the knee ; and in 
all cases also white gauntlets are worn; the sword is 
a rapier with a bowl-shaped guard for the hand, paint 
ed in several colors. Each corps has a uniform of its 
own, and all are of rich material, brilliant in color, 
and exceedingly picturesque; for they are survivals 
of the vanished costumes of the Middle Ages, and 
they reproduce for us the time when men were beau 
tiful to look at. The student who stood guard at 
our end of the table was of grave countenance and 
great frame and grace of form, and he was doubt 
less an accurate reproduction, clothes and all, of 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 22 7 

some ancestor of his of two or three centuries ago 
a reproduction as far as the outside, the animal man, 
goes, I mean. 

As I say, the place was now crowded. The near 
est aisle was packed with students standing up, and 
they made a fence which shut off the rest of the 
house from view. As far down this fence as you 
could see all these wholesome young faces were 
turned in one direction, all these intent and wor 
shiping eyes were centred upon one spot the place 
where Virchow and Helmholtz sat. The boys 
seemed lost to everything, unconscious of their own 
existence ; they devoured these two intellectual 
giants with their eyes, they feasted upon them, and 
the worship that was in their hearts shone in their 
faces. It seemed to me that I would rather be 
flooded with a glory like that, instinct with sincerity, 
innocent of self-seeking than win a hundred battles 
and break a million hearts. 

There was a big mug of beer in front of each of 
us, and more to come when wanted. There was 
also a quarto pamphlet containing the words of the 
songs to be sung. After the names of the officers of 
the feast were these words in large type : 

" Wdhrend des Kommerses herrscht allge- 
meiner Burgfriede" 



228 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

I was not able to translate this to my satisfaction, 
but a professor helped me out. This was his ex 
planation: The students in uniform belong to dif 
ferent college corps ; not all students belong to 
corps; none join the corps except those who enjoy 
fighting. The corps students fight duels with swords 
every week, one corps challenging another corps to 
furnish a certain number of duelists for the occasion, 
and it is only on this battle-field that students of dif 
ferent corps exchange courtesies. In common life 
they do not drink with each other or speak. The 
above line now translates itself: there is truce dur 
ing the Commers, war is laid aside and fellowship 
takes its place. 

Now the performance began. The concealed band 
played a piece of martial music; then there was a 
pause. The students on the platform rose to their 
feet, the middle one gave a toast to the Emperor, 
then all the house rose, mugs in hand. At the call 
"One two three!" all glasses were drained and 
then brought down with a slam on the tables in uni 
son. The result was as good an imitation of thun 
der as I have ever heard. From now on, during an 
hour, there was singing, in mighty chorus. During 
each interval between songs a number of the special 
guests the professors arrived. There seemed to 
be some signal whereby the students on the plat- 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 



22 9 



form were made aware that a professor had arrived 
at the remote door of entrance; for you would see 
them suddenly rise to their feet, strike an erect mil 
itary attitude, then draw their swords; the swords 
of all their brethren standing guard at the innumer 
able tables would flash from the scabbards and be 
held aloft a handsome spectacle ! Three clear bu 
gle notes would ring out, then all these swords would 
come down with a crash, twice repeated, on the 
tables, and be uplifted and held aloft again; 
then in the distance you would see the gay uniforms 
and uplifted swords of a guard of honor clearing the 
way and conducting the guest down to his place. 
The songs were stirring, the immense outpour from 
young life and young lungs, the crash of swords and 
the thunder of the beer mugs gradually worked a 
body up to what seemed the last possible summit of 
excitement. It surely seemed to me that I had 
reached that summit, that I had reached my limit, 
and that there was no higher lift desirable for me. 
When apparently the last eminent guest had long 
ago taken his place, again those three bugle blasts 
rang out and once more the swords leaped from their 
scabbards. Who might this late comer be ? No 
body was interested to inquire. Still, indolent eyes 
were turned toward the distant entrance, we saw 
the silken gleam and the lifted swords of a guard of 



230 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

honor plowing through the remote crowds. Then we 
saw that end of the house rising to its feet; saw it rise 
abreast the advancing guard all along, like a wave. 
This supreme honor had been offered to no one be 
fore. Then there was an excited whisper at our 
table "MOMMSEN!" and the whole house rose. 
Rose and shouted and stamped and clapped, and 
banged the beer mugs. Just simply a storm ! Then 
the little man with his long hair and Emersonian 
face edged his way past us and took his seat. I 
could have touched him with my hand Mommsen ! 
think of it ! 

This was one of those immense surprises that can 
happen only a few times in one s life. I was not 
dreaming of him, he was to me only a giant myth, 
a world-shadowing spectre, not a reality. The sur 
prise of it all can be only comparable to a man s 
suddenly coming upon Mont Blanc with its awful 
form towering into the sky, when he did n t suspect 
he was in its neighborhood. I would have walked 
a great many miles to get a sight of him, and here 
he was, without trouble or tramp or cost of any kind. 
Here he was, clothed in a Titanic deceptive mod 
esty which made him look like other men. Here 
he was, carrying the Roman world and all the 
Caesars in his hospitable skull and doing it as easily 
as that other luminous vault, the skull of the uni- 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 23 I 

verse, carries the Milky Way and the constella 
tions. 

One of the professors said that once upon a time 
an American young lady was introduced to Momm- 
sen, and found herself badly scared and speechless. 
She dreaded to see his mouth unclose, for she was 
expecting him to choose a subject several miles 
above her comprehension, and did n t suppose he 
could get down to the world that other people lived 
in; but when his remark came, her terrors disap 
peared: "Well how do you do? Have you read 
Howells s last book ? / think it s his best." 

The active ceremonies of the evening closed with 
the speeches of welcome delivered by two students 
and the replies made by Professors Virchow and 
Helmholtz. 

Virchow has long been a member of the city gov 
ernment of Berlin. He works as hard for the city 
as does any other Berlin alderman, and gets the 
same pay nothing. I don t know that we in Amer 
ica could venture to ask our most illustrious citizen 
to serve in a board of aldermen, and if we might 
venture it I am not positively sure that we could 
elect him. But here the municipal system is such 
that the best men in the city consider it an honor to 
serve gratis as aldermen, and the people have the 
good sense to prefer these men and to elect them 



232 THE GERMAN CHICAGO. 

year after year. As a result, Berlin is a thoroughly 
well-governed city. It is a free city; its affairs are 
not meddled with by the State; they are managed 
by its own citizens, and after methods of their own 
devising. 



A PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF 
ENGLAND. 

HARTFORD, Nov. 6, 1887. 

TV &gt;T ADAM : You will remember that last May 
-L* A Mr. Edward Bright, the clerk of the Inland 
Revenue Office, wrote me about a tax which he said 
was due from me to the Government on books of 
mine published in London that is to say, an in 
come tax on the royalties. I do not know Mr. 
Bright, and it is embarrassing to me to correspond 
with strangers; for I was raised in the country and 
have always lived there ; the early part in Marion 
county Missouri before the war, and this part in 
Hartford county Connecticut, near Bloomfield and 
about 8 miles this side of Farmington, though some 
call it 9, which it is impossible to be, for I have 
walked it many and many a time in considerably 
under three hours, and General Hawley says he has 
done it in two and a quarter, which is not likely; so 
it has seemed best that I write your Majesty. It is 
true that I do not know your Majesty personally, 
but I have met the Lord Mayor, and if the rest of 

233 



234 PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 

the family are like him, it is but just that it should 
be named royal; and likewise plain that in a family 
matter like this, I cannot better forward my case 
than to frankly carry it to the head of the family 
itself. I have also met the Prince of Wales once in 
the fall of 1873, but it was not in any familiar way, 
but in a quite informal way, being casual, and was 
of course a surprise to us both. It was in Oxford 
street, just where you come out of Oxford into Re 
gent Circus, and just as he turned up one side of the 
circle at the head of a procession, I went down the 
other side on the top of an omnibus. He will re 
member me on account of a gray coat with flap 
pockets that I wore, as I was the only person on 
the omnibus that had on that kind of a coat ; I re 
member him of course as easy as I would a comet. 
He looked quite proud and satisfied, but that is not 
to be wondered at, he has a good situation. And 
once I called on your Majesty, but you were out. 

But that is no matter, it happens with everybody. 
However, I have wandered a little, away from what 
I started about. It was this way. Young Bright 
wrote my London publishers Chatto and Windus 
their place is the one on the left as you come down 
Piccadilly, about a block and a half above where 
the minstrel show is he wrote them that he wanted 
them to pay income tax on the royalties of some 



PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 235 

foreign authors, namely, " Miss De La Rame 
(Ouida), Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. Francis 
Bret Harte, and Mr. Mark Twain." Well, Mr. 
Chatto diverted him from the others, and tried to 
divert him from me, but in this case he failed. So 
then, young Bright wrote me. And not only -that, 
but he sent me a printed document the size of a 
news paper, for me to sign, all over in different 
places. Well, it was that kind of a document that 
the more you study it the more it undermines you 
and makes everything seem uncertain to you ; and 
so, while in that condition, and really not responsi 
ble for my acts, I wrote Mr. Chatto to pay the tax 
and charge to me. Of course my idea was, that it 
was for only one year, and that the tax would be 
only about one per cent or along there somewhere, 
but last night I met Professor Sloane of Princeton 
you may not know him, but you have probably 
se en him every now and then, for he goes to Eng 
land a good deal, a large man and very handsome 
and absorbed in thought, and if you have noticed 
such a man on platforms after the train is gone, that 
is the one, he generally gets left, like all those spe 
cialists and other scholars who know everything but 
how to apply it and he said it was a back tax for 
three years, and no one per cent, but two and a 
half! 



236 PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 

That gave what had seemed a little matter, a 
new aspect. I then began to study the printed doc 
ument again, to see if I could find anything in it 
that might modify my case, and I had what seems 
to be a quite promising success. For instance, it 
opens thus polite and courteous, the way those 
English government documents always are I do 
not say that to hear myself talk, it is just the fact, 
and it is a credit : 

" To MR. MARK TWAIN : IN PURSUANCE of 
the Acts of Parliament for granting to Her Majesty 
Duties and Profits," etc. 

I had not noticed that before. My idea had been 
that it was for the Government, and so I wrote to 
the Government ; but now I saw that it was a pri 
vate matter, a family matter, and that the proceeds 
went to yourself, not the Government. I would al 
ways rather treat with principals, and I am glad I 
noticed that clause. With a principal, one can al 
ways get at a fair and right understanding, whether 
it is about potatoes, or continents, or any of those 
things, or something entirely different ; for the size 
or nature of the thing does not affect the fact ; 
whereas, as a rule, a subordinate is more or less 
troublesome to satisfy. And yet this is not against 
them, but the other way. They have their duties 
to do, and must be harnessed to rules, and not 



PETITION TO THE QUEEN OP ENGLAND. 

allowed any discretion. Why if your Majesty should 
equip young Bright with discretion I mean his own 
discretion it is an even guess that he would discre 
tion you out of house and home in 2 or 3 years. He 
would not mean to get the family into straits, but 
that would be the upshot, just the same. Now 
then, with Bright out of the way, this is not going 
to be any Irish question ; it is going to be settled 
pleasantly and satisfactorily for all of us, and when 
it is finished your Majesty is going to stand with the 
American people just as you have stood for fifty 
years, and surely no monarch can require better 
than that of an alien nation. They do not all pay 
a British income tax, but the most of them will in 
time, for we have shoals of new authors coming 
along every year ; and of the population of your 
Canada, upwards of four-fifths are wealthy Ameri 
cans, and more going there all the time. 

Well, another thing which I noticed in the Docu 
ment, was an item about " Deductions." 1 will 
come to that presently, your Majesty. And another 
thing was this : that Authors are not mentioned in 
the Document at all. No, we have " Quarries, 
Mines, Iron Works, Salt Springs, Alum Mines, 
Water Works, Canals, Docks, Drains, Levels, Fish 
ings, Fairs, Tolls, Bridges, Ferries," and so-forth 
and so-forth and so-on well, as much as a yard or 



238 PETITION TO TtfE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 

a yard and a half of them, I should think anyway 
a very large quantity or number. I read along 
down, and dcr.vn, and down the list, further, and 
further, and further, and as I approached the bot 
tom my hopes began to rise higher and higher, be 
cause I saw that everything in England, that far, 
was taxed by name and in detail, except perhaps 
the family, and maybe Parliament, and yet still no 
mention of Authors. Apparently they were going 
to be overlooked. And sure enough, they were ! 
My heart gave a great bound. But I was too soon. 
There was a foot note, in Mr. Bright s hand, which 
said : " You are taxed under Schedule D, section 
14." I turned to that place, and found these three 
things: Trades, Offices, Gas Works." 

Of course, after a moment s reflection, hope came 
up again, and then certainty: Mr. Bright was in 
error, and clear off the track ; for Authorship is not 
a Trade, it is an inspiration ; Authorship does not 
keep an Office, its habitation is all out under the 
sky, and everywhere where the winds are blowing 
and the sun is shining and the creatures of God are 
free. Now then, since I have no Trade and keep 
no Office, I am not taxable under Schedule D, sec 
tion 14. Your Majesty sees that; so I will go on to 
that other thing that I spoke of, the " deductions" 
deductions from my tax which I may get allowed, 



PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF EA GLAND. 239 

under conditions. Mr. Bright says all deductions 
to be claimed by me must be restricted to the pro 
visions made in Paragraph No. 8, entitled " Wear 
and Tear of Machinery, or Plant." This is curious, 
and shows how far he has gotten away on his wrong 
course after once he has got started wrong : for 
Offices and Trades do not have Plant, they do not 
have Machinery, such a thing was never heard of ; 
and moreover they do not wear and tear. You see 
that, your Majesty, and that it is true. Here is the 
Paragraph No. 8 : 

Amount claimed as a deduction for diminished value by 
reason of Wear and Tear, where the Machinery or Plant be 
longs to the Person or Company carrying on the Concern, or 
is let to such Person or Company so that the Lessee is bound 
to maintain and deliver over the same in good condition: 



Amount 



There it is the very words. 

I could answer Mr. Bright thus : 

It is my pride to say that my Brain is my Plant ; 
and I do not claim any deduction for diminished 
value by reason of Wear and Tear, for the reason 
that it does not wear and tear, but stays sound and 
whole all the time. Yes, I could say to him, my 
Brain is my Plant, my Skull is my Workshop, my 
Hand is my Machinery, and I am the Person carry- 



240 PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 

ing on the Concern ; it is not leased to anybody, 
and so there is no Lessee bound to maintain and de 
liver over the same in good condition. There. I 
do not wish to any way overrate this argument and 
answer, dashed off just so, and not a word of it 
altered from the way I first wrote it, your Majesty, 
but indeed it does seem to pulverize that young 
fellow, you can see that yourself. But that is all I 
say ; I stop there ; I never pursue a person after I 
have got him clown. 

Having thus shown your Majesty that I am not 
taxable, but am the victim of the error of a clerk 
who mistakes the nature of my commerce, it only 
remains for me to beg that you will of your justice 
annul my letter that I spoke of, so that my pub 
lisher can keep back that tax-money which, in the 
confusion and aberration caused by the Document, 
I ordered him to pay. You will not miss the sum, 
but this is a hard year for authors ; and as for lec 
tures, I do not suppose your Majesty ever saw such 
a dull season. 

With always great, and ever increasing respect, I 
beg to sign myself your Majesty s servant to com 
mand, MARK TWAIN. 

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, LONDON. 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

TF I were required to guess off-hand, and without 
* collusion with higher minds, what is the bot 
tom cause of the amazing material and intellectual 
advancement of the last fifty years, I should guess 
that it was the modern-born and previously non 
existent disposition on the part of men to believe 
that a new idea can have value. With the long roll 
of the mighty names of history present in our minds, 
we are not privileged to doubt that for the past 
twenty or thirty centuries every conspicuous civili 
zation in the world has produced intellects able to 
invent and create the things which make our day a 
wonder; perhaps we may be justified in inferring, 
then, that the reason they did not do it was that 
the public reverence for old ideas and hostility to 
new ones always stood in their way, and was a wall 
they could not break down or climb over. The pre 
vailing tone of old books regarding new ideas is one 
of suspicion and uneasiness at times, and at other 
times contempt. By contrast, our day is indifferent 

to old ideas, and even considers that their age makes 

241 



242 A MAJES TIC LI TERA R Y FOSSIL. 

their value questionable, but jumps at a new idea 
with enthusiasm and high hope a hope which is 
high because it has not been accustomed to being 
disappointed. I make no guess as to just when this 
disposition was born to us, but it certainly is ours, 
was not possessed by any century before us, is our 
peculiar mark and badge, and is doubtless the bot 
tom reason why we are a race of lightning-shod 
Mercuries, and proud of it instead of being, like 
our ancestors, a race of plodding crabs, and proud 
of that. 

So recent is this change from a three or four 
thousand year twilight to the flash and glare of open 
day that I have walked in both, and yet am not old. 
Nothing is to-day as it was when I was an urchin; 
but when I was an urchin, nothing was much different 
from what it had always been in this world. Take a 
single detail, for example medicine. Galen could 
have come into my sick-room at any time during my 
first seven years I mean any day when it was n t 
fishing weather, and there was n t any choice but 
school or sickness and he could have sat down there 
and stood my doctor s watch without asking a ques 
tion. He would have smelt around among the wil 
derness of cups and bottles and phials on the table 
and the shelves, and missed not a stench that used to 
glad him two thousand years before, nor discovered 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 243 

one that was of a later date. He would have exam 
ined me, and run across only one disappointment 
I was already salivated; I would have him there; 
for I was always salivated, calomel was so cheap. 
He would get out his lancet then; but I would have 
him again; our family doctor did n t allow blood to 
accumulate in the system. However, he could take 
dipper and ladle, and freight me up with old familiar 
doses that had come down from Adam to his time 
and mine; and he could go out with a wheelbarrow 
and gather weeds and offal, and build some more, 
while those others were getting in their work. And 
if our reverend doctor came and found him there, 
he would be dumb with awe, and would get down 
and worship him. Whereas if Galen should appear 
among us to-day, he could not stand anybody s 
watch; he would inspire no awe; he would be told 
he was a back number, and it would surprise him 
to see that that fact counted against him, instead of 
in his favor. He would n t know our medicines; he 
would n t know our practice; and the first time he 
tried to introduce his own, we would hang him. 

This introduction brings me to my literary relic. 
It is a Dictionary of Medicine, by Dr. James, of Lon 
don, assisted by Mr. Boswell s Doctor Samuel John 
son, and is a hundred and fifty years old, it having 
been published at the time of the rebellion of 45. 



244 A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

If it had been sent against the Pretender s troops 
there probably wouldn t have been a survivor. In 
1861 this deadly book was still working the ceme 
teries down in Virginia. For three generations 
and a half it had been going quietly along, enrich 
ing the earth with its slain. Up to its last free day 
it was trusted and believed in, and its devastating 
advice taken, as was shown by notes inserted be 
tween its leaves. But our troops captured it and 
brought it home, and it has been out of business 
since. These remarks from its preface are in the 
true spirit of the olden time, sodden with worship of 
the old, disdain of the new: 

If we inquire into the Improvements which have been 
made by the Moderns, we shall be forced to confess that we 
have so little Reason to value ourselves beyond the Antients, 
or to be tempted to contemn them, that we cannot give 
stronger or more convincing Proofs of our own Ignorance, 
as well as our Pride. 

Among all the systematical Writers, I think there are very 
few who refuse the Preference to Hteron, Fabriciits ab Aqua- 
pendente, as a Person of unquestion d Learning and Judg 
ment; and yet is he not asham d to let his Readers know 
that Celsus among the Latins, Paulits Aegineta among the 
Greeks, and Albucasis among the Arabians, whom I am un 
willing to place among the Moderns, tho he liv d but six 
hundred Years since, are the Triumvirate to whom he princi 
pally stands indebted, for the Assistance he had receiv d from 
them in composing his excellent Book. 

[In a previous paragraph are puffs of Galen, Hippocrates, 
and other debris of the Old Silurian Period of Medicine.] 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 245 

How many Operations are there now in Use which were un 
known to the Antients ? 

That is true. The surest way for a nation s scien 
tific men to prove that they were proud and igno 
rant was to claim to have found out something fresh 
in the course of a thousand years or so. Evidently 
the peoples of this book s clay regarded themselves 
as children, and their remote ancestors as the only 
grown-up people that had existed. Consider the 
contrast: without offence, without over-egotism, our 
own scientific men may and do regard themselves 
as grown people and their grandfathers as children. 
The change here presented is probably the most 
sweeping that has ever come over mankind in the 
history of the race. It is the utter reversal, in a 
couple of generations, of an attitude which had been 
maintained without challenge or interruption from 
the earliest antiquity. It amounts to creating man 
over again on a new plan; he was a canal-boat be 
fore, he is an ocean greyhound to-day. The change 
from reptile to bird was not more tremendous, and 
it took longer. 

It is curious. If you read between the lines what 
this author says about Brer Albucasis, you detect 
that in venturing to compliment him he has to 
whistle a little to keep his courage up, because Al 
bucasis " liv d but six hundred Years since," and 



246 A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

therefore came so uncomfortably near being a 
"modern" that one couldn t respect him without 
risk. 

Phlebotomy, Venesection terms to signify bleed 
ing are not often heard in our day, because we 
have ceased to believe that the best way to make a 
bank or a body healthy is to squander its capital; 
but in our author s time the physician went around 
with a hatful of lancets on his person all the time, 
and took a hack at every patient whom he found 
still alive. He robbed his man of pounds and pounds 
of blood at a single operation. The details of this 
sort in this book make terrific reading. Apparently 
even the healthy did not escape, but were bled 
twelve times a year, on a particular day of the 
month, and exhaustively purged besides. Here is 
a specimen of the vigorous old-time practice; it oc 
curs in our author s adoring biography of a Doctor 
Aretaeus, a licensed assassin of Homer s time, or 
thereabouts: 

In a Quinsey he used Venesection, and allow d- the Blood 
to flow till the Patient was ready to faint away. 

There is no harm in trying to cure a headache 
in our day. You can t do it, but you get more or 
less entertainment out of trying, and that is some 
thing; besides, you live to tell about it, and that i? 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 247 

more. A century or so ago you could have had the 
first of these features in rich variety, but you might 
fail of the other once and once would do. I quote: 

As Dissections of Persons who have died of severe Head- 
achs, which have been related by Authors, are too numerous 
to be inserted in this Place, we shall here abridge some of 
the most curious and important Observations relating to this 
Subject, collected by the celebrated Bonetus. 

The celebrated Bonetus s " Observation No I " 
seems to me a sufficient sample, all by itself, of 
what people used to have to stand any time between 
the creation of the world and the birth of your father 
and mine when they had the disastrous luck to get 
a " Head-ach" : 

A certain Merchant, about forty Years of Age, of a Melan 
cholic Habit, and deeply involved in the Cares of the World, 
was, during the Dog-days, seiz d with a violent pain of his 
Head, which some time after oblig d him to keep his Bed. 

I, being call d, order d Venesection in the Arms, the Ap 
plication of Leeches to the Vessels of his Nostrils, Forehead, 
and Temples, as also to those behind his Ears; I likewise 
prescrib d the Application of Cupping-glasses, with Scarifica 
tion, to his Back: But, notwithstanding these Precautions, 
he dy d. If any Surgeon, skill d in Arteriotomy, had been 
present, I should have also order d that Operation. 

I looked for " Arteriotomy" in this same Diction 
ary, and found this definition, "The opening of an 
Artery with a View of taking away Blood." Here 
was a person who was being bled in the arms, fore- 



248 A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

head, nostrils, back, temples, and behind the ears, 
yet the celebrated Bonetus was not satisfied, but 
wanted to open an artery, " with a View " to insert 
ing a pump, probably. " Notwithstanding these 
Precautions " he dy d. No art of speech could 
more quaintly convey this butcher s innocent sur 
prise. Now that we know what the celebrated 
Bonetus did when he wanted to relieve a Head-ach, 
it is no trouble to infer that if he wanted to comfort 
a man that had a Stomach-ach he disembowelled him. 

I have given one " Observation " a single Head- 
ach case; but the celebrated Bonetus follows it with 
eleven more. Without enlarging upon the matter, 
I merely note this coincidence they all " dy d." 
Not one of these people got well; yet this obtuse 
hyena sets down every little gory detail of the 
several assassinations as complacently as if he im 
agined he was doing a useful and meritorious work 
in perpetuating the methods of his crimes. "Ob 
servations," indeed ! They are confessions. 

According to this book, " the Ashes of an Ass s 
hoof mix d with Woman s milk cures chilblains." 
Length of time required not stated. Another item : 
" The constant Use of Milk is bad for the Teeth, 
and causes them to rot, and loosens the Gums." 
Yet in our day babies use it constantly without 
hurtful results. This author thinks you ought to 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 249 

wash out your mouth with wine before venturing to 
drink milk. Presently, when we come to notice 
what fiendish decoctions those people introduced 
into their stomachs by way of medicine, we shall 
wonder that they could have been afraid of milk. 

It appears that they had false teeth in those days. 
They were made of ivory sometimes, sometimes of 
bone, and were thrust into the natural sockets, and 
lashed to each other and to the neighboring teeth 
with wires or with silk threads. They were not to 
eat with, nor to laugh with, because they dropped 
out when not in repose. You could smile with 
them, but you had to practice first, or you would 
overdo it. They were not for business, but just 
decoration. They filled the bill according to their 
lights. 

This author says " the Flesh of Swine nourishes 
above all other eatables." In another place he 
mentions a number of things, and says these are 
very easy to be digested; so is Pork." This is proba 
bly a lie. But he is pretty handy in that line; and 
when he has n t anything of the sort in stock him 
self he gives some other expert an opening. For 
instance, under the head of " Attractives " he intro 
duces Paracelsus, who tells of a nameless "Specific" 
quantity of it not set down which is able to draw a 
hundred pounds of flesh to itself distance not stated 



250 A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

and then proceeds, "It happen d in our own 
Days that an Attractive of this Kind drew a certain 
Man s Lungs up into his Mouth, by which he had 
the Misfortune to be suffocated." This is more than 
doubtful. In the first place, his Mouth could n t ac 
commodate his Lungs in fact, his Hat could n t; 
secondly, his Heart being more eligibly Situated, it 
would have got the Start of his Lungs, and being a 
lighter Body, it would have Sail d in ahead and Oc 
cupied the Premises; thirdly, you will Take Notice 
a Man with his Heart in his Mouth has n t any Room 
left for his Lungs he has got all he can Attend to; 
and finally, the Man must have had the Attractive 
in his Hat, and when he saw what was going to 
Happen he would have Remov d it and Sat Down 
on it. Indeed he would; and then how could it 
Choke him to Death ? I don t believe the thing 
ever happened at all. 

Paracelsus adds this effort : " I myself saw a 
Plaister which attracted as much Water as was suf 
ficient to fill a Cistern ; and by these very Attractives 
Branches may be torn from Trees; and, which is 
still more surprising, a Cow may be carried up into 
the Air." Paracelsus is dead now; he was always 
straining himself that way. 

They liked a touch of mystery along with their 
medicine in the olden time; and the medicine-man 



A MAJESTIC LITERAR Y FOSSIL. 25 I 

of that day, like the medicine-man of our Indian 
tribes, did what he could to meet the requirement : 

Arcanum. A Kind of Remedy whose Manner of Prepara 
tion, or singular Efficacy, is industriously concealed, in order 
to enhance its Value. By the Chymists it is generally de 
fined a thing secret, incorporeal, and immortal, which can 
not be Known by Man, unless by Experience; for it is the 
Virtue of every thing, which operates a thousand times more 
than the thing itself. 

To me the butt end of this explanation is not al 
together clear. A little of what they knew about 
natural history in the early times is exposed here 
and there in the Dictionary. 

The Spider. It is more common than welcome in Houses. 
Both the Spider and its Web are used in Medicine: The 
Spider is said to avert the Paroxysms of Fevers, if it be ap 
ply d to the Pulse of the Wrist, or the Temples; but it is 
peculiarly recommended against a Quartan, being enclosed 
in the Shell of a Hazlenut. 

Among approved Remedies, I find that the distill d 
Water of Black Spiders is an excellent Cure for Wounds, 
and that this was one of the choice Secrets of Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 

The Spider which some call the Catcher, or Wolf, being 
beaten into a Plaister, then sew d up in Linen, and apply d 
to the Forehead or Temples, prevents the Returns of a 
Tertian. 

There is another Kind of Spider, which spins a white, 
fine, and thick Web. One of this Sort, wrapp d in Leather, 
and hung about the Arm, will avert the Fit of a Quartan. 
Boil d in Oil of Roses, and instilled into the Ears, it eases 
Pains in those Parts. Dioscoridcs, Lib. 2, Cap. 68. 



252 A MAJESTIC LITER A R Y FOSSIL. 

Thus we find that Spiders have in all Ages been celebrated 
for their febrifuge Virtues; and it is worthy of Remark, that 
a Spider is usually given to Monkeys, and is esteem d a 
sovereign Remedy for the Disorders those Animals are princi 
pally subject to. 

Then follows a long account of how a dying wo 
man, who had suffered nine hours a day with an 
ague during eight weeks, and who had been bled 
dry some dozens of times meantime without ap 
parent benefit, was at last forced to swallow several 
wads of " Spiders-web," whereupon she straight 
way mended, and promptly got well. So the sage 
is full of enthusiasm over the spider-webs, and men 
tions only in the most casual way the discontinuance 
of the daily bleedings, plainly never suspecting that 
this had anything to do with the cure. 

As concerning the venomous Nature of Spiders, Scaltger 
takes notice of a certain Species of them (which he had for 
gotten), whose Poison was of so great Force as to affect one 
Vincent inus thro the Sole of his Shoe, by only treading on it. 

The sage takes that in without a strain, but the 
following case was a trifle too bulky for him, as his 
comment reveals : 

In Gascony, observes Scaliger, there is a very small Spider, 
which, running over a Looking-glass, will crack the same by 
the Force of her Poison. (A mere Fable.} 

But he finds no fault with the following facts : 



A MAJES TIC LIT ERA R Y FOSSIL. 2 5 3 

Remarkable is the Enmity recorded between this Creature 
and the Serpent, as also the Toad : Of the former it is re 
ported, That, lying (as he thinks securely) under the Shadow 
of some Tree, the Spider lets herself down by her Thread, 
and, striking her Proboscis or Sting into the Head, with 
that Force and Efficacy, injecting likewise her venomous 
Juice, that, wringing himself about, he immediately grows 
giddy, and quickly after dies. 

When the Toad is bit or stung in Fight with this Creature, 
the Lizard, Adder, or other that is poisonous, she finds re 
lief from Plantain, to which she resorts. In her Combat 
with the Toad, the Spider useth the same Stratagem as with 
the Serpent, hanging by her own Thread from the Bough of 
some Tree, and striking her Sting into her enemy s Head, upon 
which the other, enraged, swells up, and sometimes bursts. 

To this Effect is the Relation of Erasmus, which he saith 
he had from one of the Spectators, of a Person lying along 
upon the Floor of his Chamber, in the Summer-time, to 
sleep in a supine Posture, when a Toad, creeping out of 
some green Rushes, brought just before in, to adorn the 
Chimney, gets upon his Face, and with his Feet sits across 
his Lips. To force off the Toad, says the Historian, would 
have been accounted sudden Death to the Sleeper; and to 
leave her there, very cruel and dangerous; so that upon Con 
sultation it was concluded to find out a Spider, which, to 
gether with her Web, and the Window she was fasten d to, 
was brought carefully, and so contrived as to be held per 
pendicularly to the Man s Face; which was no sooner done, 
but the Spider, discovering his Enemy, let himself down, and 
struck in his Dart, afterwards betaking himself up again to 
his Web; the Toad swell d, but as yet kept his Station: The 
second Wound is given quickly after by the Spider, upon which 
he swells yet more, but remain d alive still. The Spider, 
coming down again by his Thread, gives the third Blow; 
and the Toad, taking off his Feet from over the Man s 
Mouth, fell off dead. 



254 * MAJESTIC LITERAR Y FOSSIL. 

To which the sage appends this grave remark, 
" And so much for the historical Part." Then he 
passes on to a consideration of "the Effects and 
Cure of the Poison." 

One of the most interesting things about this 
tragedy is the double sex of the Toad, and also of 
the Spider. 

Now the sage quotes from one Turner : 

I remember, when a very young Practitioner, being sent 
for to a certain Woman, whose Custom was usually, when 
she went to the Cellar by Candle-light, to go also a Spider- 
hunting, setting Fire to their Webs, and burning them with 
the Flame of the Candle still as she pursued them. It hap- 
pen d at length, after this Whimsy had been follow d a long 
time, one of them sold his Life much dearer than those Hun 
dreds she had destroy d ; for, lighting upon the melting Tal 
low of her Candle, near the Flame, and his legs being 
entangled therein, so that he could not extricate himself, the 
Flame or Heat coming on, he was made a Sacrifice to his 
cruel Persecutor, who delighting her Eyes with the Spectacle, 
still waiting for the Flame to take hold of him, he presently 
burst with a great Crack, and threw his Liquor, some into 
her Eyes, but mostly upon her Lips ; by means of which, 
flinging away her Candle, she cry d out for Help, as fansying 
herself kill d already with the Poison. However in the Night 
her Lips swell d up excessively, and one of her Eyes was 
much inflam d ; also her Tongue and Gums were somewhat 
affected ; and, whether from the Nausea excited by the 
Thoughts of the Liquor getting into her Mouth, or from the 
poisonous Impressions communicated by the nervous Fi- 
brilla: of those Parts to those of the Ventricle, a continual 
Vomiting attended : To take off which, when I was call d. I 
order d a Glass of mull d Sack, with a Scruple of Salt of 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 255 

Wormwood, and some hours after a Theriacal Bolus, which 
she flung up again. I embrocated the Lips with the Oil of 
Scorpions mix d with the Oil of Roses ; and, in Considera 
tion of the Ophthalmy, tho I was not certain but the Heat 
of the Liquor, rais d by the Flame of the Candle before the 
Body of the Creature burst, might, as well as the Venom, 
excite the Disturbance, (altho Mr. Boyle s Case of a Person 
blinded by this Liquor dropping from the living Spider, 
makes the latter sufficient ;) yet observing the great Tume 
faction of the Lips, together with the other Symptoms not 
likely to arise from simple Heat, I was inclin d to believe a 
real Poison in the Case ; and therefore not daring to let her 
Blood in the Arm [If a man s throat were cut in those old 
days, the doctor would come and bleed the other end of him], 
1 did, however, with good Success, set Leeches to her Tem 
ples, which took off much of the Inflammation ; and her 
Pain was likewise abated, by instilling into her Eyes a thin 
Mucilage of the Seeds of Quinces and white Poppies ex 
tracted with Rose-water ; yet the Swelling on the Lips in 
creased ; upon which, in the Night, she wore a Cataplasm 
prepared by boiling the Leaves of Scordium, Rue, and Elder- 
flowers, and afterwards thicken d with the Meal of Vetches. 
In the mean time, her Vomiting having left her, she had 
given her, between whiles, a little Draught of distill d Water 
of Carduus Benedictus and Scordium, with some of the 
Theriaca dissolved ; and upon going off of the Symptoms, 
an old Woman came luckily in, who, with Assurance suitable 
to those People, (whose Ignorance and Poverty is their 
Safety and Protection,) took off the Dressings, promising to 
cure her in two Days time, altho she made it as many Weeks, 
yet had the Reputation of the Cure ; applying only Plantain 
Leaves bruis d and mixed with Cobwebs, dropping the Juice 
into her Eye, and giving some Spoonfuls of the same in 
wardly, two or three times a day. 

So ends the wonderful affair. Whereupon the 



256 A MAJESTIC LITER A K Y FOSSIL. 

sage gives Mr. Turner the following shot strength 
ening it with italics and passes calmly on: 

/ must remark upon this History, that the Plantain, as a 
Cooler, was much more likely to cure this Disorder than warmer 
Applications and Medicines" 

How strange that narrative sounds to-day, and 
how grotesque, when one reflects that it was a grave 
contribution to medical "science" by an old and 
reputable physician ! Here was all this to-do two 
weeks of it over a woman who had scorched her 
eye and her lips with candle grease. The poor 
wench is as elaborately dosed, bled, embrocated, 
and otherwise harried and bedeviled, as if there had 
been really something the matter with her; and 
when a sensible old woman comes along at last, and 
treats the trivial case in a sensible way, the educated 
ignoramus rails at her ignorance, serenely uncon 
scious of his own. It is pretty suggestive of the 
former snail pace of medical progress that the spider 
retained his terrors during three thousand years, 
and only lost them within the last thirty or forty. 

Observe what imagination can do. "This same 
young Woman " used to be so affected by the strong 
(imaginary) smell which emanated from the burning 
spiders that " the Objects about her seem d to turn 
round; she grew faint also with cold Sweats, and 



A MAJES TIC LI TERA R Y FOSSIL. 257 

sometimes a light Vomiting." There could have 
been Beer in that cellar as well as Spiders. 

Here are some more of the effects of imagination: 
" Sennertus takes Notice of the Signs of the Bite or 
Sting of this Insect to be a Stupor or Numbness 
upon the Part, with a sense of Cold, Horror, or 
Swelling of the Abdomen, Paleness of the Face, in 
voluntary Tears, Trembling, Contractions, a (****), 
Convulsions, cold Sweats; but these latter chiefly 
when the Poison has been received inwardly," 
whereas the modern physician holds that a few 
spiders taken inwardly, by a bird or a man, will do 
neither party any harm. 

The above "Signs" are not restricted to spider 
bites often they merely indicate fright. I have 
seen a person with a hornet in his pantaloons ex 
hibit them all. 

As to the Cure, not slighting the usual Alexipharmics 
taken internally, the Place bitten must be. immediately 
washed with Salt Water, or a Sponge dipped in hot Vinegar, 
or fomented with a Decoction of Mallows, Origanum, and 
Mother of Thyme ; after which a Cataplasm must be laid on 
of the Leaves of Bay, Rue, Leeks, and the Meal of Barley, 
boiled with Vinegar, or of Garlick and Onions, contused 
with Goat s Dung and fat Figs. Mean time the Patient 
should eat Garlick and drink Wine freely. 

As for me, I should prefer the spider bite. Let 
us close this review with a sample or two of the 



258 A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

earthquakes which the old-time doctor used to in 
troduce into his patient when he could find room. 
Under this head we have "Alexander s Golden 
Antidote," which is good for well, pretty much 
everything. It is probably the old original first 
patent-medicine. It is built as follows: 

Take of Afarabocca, Henbane, Carpobalsamum, each two 
Drams and a half ; of Cloves, Opium, Myrrh, Cyperus, each 
two Drams ; of Opobalsamum, Indian Leaf, Cinamon, Zedo- 
ary, Ginger, Coftus, Coral, Cassia, Euphorbium, Gum Traga- 
canth, Frankincense, Styrax Calamita, Celtic, Nard, Spignel, 
Hartwort, Mustard, Saxifrage, Dill, Anise, each one Dram ; 
of Xylaloes, Rheum, Ponticum, Alipta Moschata, Castor, 
Spikenard, Galangals, Opoponax, Anacardium, Mastich, 
Brimstone, Peony, Erirgo, Pulp of Dates, red and white 
Hermodactyls, Roses, Thyme, Acorns, Penyroyal, Gentian, 
the Bark of the Root of Mandrake, Germander, Valerian, 
Bishops Weed, Bay-Berries, long and white Pepper, Xylo- 
balsamum, Carnabadium, Macedonian, Parsley-seeds, Lov- 
age, the Seeds of Rue, aid Sinon, of each a Dram and a 
half ; of pure Gold, pure Silver, Pearls not perforated, the 
Blatta Byzantina, the Bone of the Stag s Heart, of each the 
Quantity of fourteen Grains of Wheat ; of Sapphire, Em 
erald, and Jasper Stones, each one Dram ; of Hasle- 
nut, two Drams ; of Pellitory of Spain, Shavings of 
Ivory, Calamus Odoratus, each the Quantity of twenty- 
nine Grains of Wheat ; of Honey or Sugar a sufficient 
Quantity. 

Serve with a shovel. No; one might expect such 
an injunction after such formidable preparation; but 
it is not so. The dose recommended is " the Quan- 



A MAJESTIC LITER A R Y FOSSIL. 259 

tity of an Hasle-nut." Only that; it is because there 
is so much jewelry in it, no doubt. 

Aqua Limacum. Take a great Peck of Garden-snails, and 
wash them in a great deal of Beer, and make your Chimney 
very clean, and set a Bushel of Charcoal on Fire ; and when 
they are thoroughly kindled, make a Hole in the Middle of 
the Fire, and put the Snails in, and scatter more Fire amongst 
them, and let them roast till they make a Noise ; then take 
them out, and, with a Knife and coarse Cloth, pick and wipe 
away all the green Froth : Then break them, Shells and all, 
in a Stone Mortar. Take also a Quart of Earth-worms, and 
scour them with Salt, divers times over. Then take two 
Handfuls of Angelica and lay them in the Bottom of the 
Still ; next lay two Handfuls of Celandine ; next a Quart of 
Rosemary-flowers ; then two Handfuls of Bears-foot and 
Agrimony ; then Fenugreek ; then Turmerick ; of each one 
Ounce : Red Dock-root, Bark of Barberry-trees, Wood- 
sorrel, Betony, of each two Handfuls. Then lay the Snails 
and Worms on the Top of the Herbs ; and then two Hand 
fuls of Goose-dung, and two Handfuls of Sheep-dung. Then 
put in three Gallons of Strong Ale, and place the pot where 
you mean to set Fire -under it : Let it stand all Night, or 
longer ; in the Morning put in three Ounces of Cloves well 
beaten, and a small Quantity of Saffron, dry d to Powder; 
then six Ounces of Shavings of Hartshorn, which must be 
uppermost. Fix on the Head and Refrigeratory, and distil 
according to Art. 

There. The book does not say whether this is 
all one dose, or whether you have a right to 
split it and take a second chance at it, in case you 
live. Also, the book does not seem to specify 
what ailment it was for; but it is of no conse- 



260 A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL. 

quence, for of course that would come out on the 
inquest. 

Upon looking further, I find that this formidable 
nostrum is "good for raising Flatulencies in the 
Stomach " meaning from the stomach, no doubt. 
So it would appear that when our progenitors 
chanced to swallow a sigh, they emptied a sewer 
down their throats to expel it. It is like dislodging 
skippers from cheese with artillery. 

When you-reflect that your own father had to take 
such medicines as the above, and that you would be 
taking them to-day yourself but for the introduction 
of homoeopathy, which forced the old-school doctor 
to stir around and learn something of a rational 
nature about his business, you may honestly feel 
grateful that homoeopathy survived the attempts of 
the allopathists to destroy it, even though you may 
never employ any physician but an allopathist while 
you live. 



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